Eleanor Mollie Horadam

Eleanor Mollie Horadam (29 June 1921 – 5 May 2002) was an English-Australian mathematician specialising in the number theory of generalised integers.[1]

Life

Horadam was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire.[2] She read mathematics at Girton College, Cambridge. Then, while doing wartime service by day for Rolls-Royce performing stress–strain analysis of jet engines, she took night classes in engineering at the University of London, earning first-class honours there.[1]

She moved to Australia by herself in 1949, becoming a lecturer at the University of New England. There, she married mathematician Alwyn Horadam and raised three children, persuading the university to update their maternity policies so that (unusually for the time) she could keep her position as a lecturer.[1] She completed a doctorate[3] and became a senior lecturer in 1965, retired in 1983, and was named a fellow of the university in 1995.[2]

Her daughter Kathy Horadam, also became a mathematician.[1]

Mathematics

Horadam's research concerned generalised integers, formed from a sequence of real numbers greater than one (called generalised prime numbers) as the products of finite multisets of generalised primes.[4]

She was also the author of a textbook published by the University of New England, Principles of mathematics for economists (1982).[5]

References
  1. Horadam, Kathy (11 September 2002), "Woman of principle in the calculating world of men", Sydney Morning Herald
  2. "Horadam, Eleanor Mollie (1921 - 2002)", Encyclopedia of Australian Science
  3. Eleanor Mollie Horadam at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  4. Shannon, A. G. (July 2019), "Applications of Mollie Horadam's generalized integers to Fermatian and Fibonacci numbers", Notes on Number Theory and Discrete Mathematics, 25 (2): 113–126, doi:10.7546/nntdm.2019.25.2.113-126
  5. National Library of Australia catalogue entry for Principles of mathematics for economists, retrieved 2020-03-04.

Further reading
  • Horadam, Kathy (2002), "Obituary: Eleanor Mollie Horadam (29 June 1921 – 5 May 2002)", The Australian Mathematical Society Gazette, 29 (4): 224–225, MR 1932854
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