H. J. S. Smith and the Fermat Two Squares Theorem

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Notes on contributors

F. W. Clarke

FRANCIS CLARKE was educated at Birmingham University (B.Sc. 1968) and at the University of Warwick (M.Sc. 1969, Ph.D. 1971). Since 1971 he has taught in the Mathematics Department at the University of Wales Swansea. He has research interests both in algebraic topology and in number theory. The Bernoulli numbers are an enduring fascination that provide a link between the two fields. Other interests include playing the clarinet, hill walking, skiing, and sailing.

W. N. Everitt

W. NORRIE EVERITT was educated at the University of Birmingham, and then at Balliol College, Oxford in Great Britain. He obtained his D.Phil, from the University of Oxford in 1955 with thesis advisor Edward Charles Titchmarsh. He first heard of the Smith proof of the Fermat two squares theorem at a lecture given by the late Harold Davenport, in 1950, to the Invariant Society, University of Oxford. He is Professor Emeritus of the University of Birmingham.

L. L. Littlejohn

LANCE L. LITTLEJOHN received his B.Sc. in 1975, his M.A. in 1976 (both in mathematics from the University of Western Ontario), and his Ph.D. in mathematics from Penn State University in 1981. His first academic position was at the University of Texas at San Antonio; since 1983, he has been at Utah State University. He enjoys all types of rigorous mathematics; in particular, his research interests in differential equations, operator theory, and special functions. Most of his non-mathematical time is spent with his wife, Wendy, and their two children, Alex and Mary (although he does manage to sneak some time to follow his beloved, but hapless, Detroit Tigers).

S. J. R. Vorster

ROELOF VORSTER received a B.Sc. from the University of Pretoria, South Africa in 1962 and started his career with a big bang as an explosives chemist at the world's largest dynamite factory. Realizing that mathematics is his first love, he joined the staff of the distance teaching University of South Africa (UNISA) where he obtained a Ph.D. in topology and category theory in 1972, and where he has been head of the mathematics department since 1990. It was during a visit to UNISA by Norrie Everitt and Lance Littlejohn in 1990 that the former delivered a fascinating talk that aroused great interest in the work of HJS Smith and the Fermat Two Squares Theorem.