Person: Hayman, Walter Kurt
Walter Hayman was a German born British mathematician best known for work in complex analysis.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Walter is therefore related to famous mathematicians, famous educationalists, famous philosophers, and to the brilliant composers Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn (see Kurt Hensel's biography).
- Franz Haymann (1874-1947) was Professor of Law at the University of Cologne when Walter was born.
- After graduating from Gordonstoun School, Hayman studied at St John's College, Cambridge.
- Lars Ahlfors, discussing the second of these papers, explains that "The results seem very accurate, but their formulation is extremely complicated." He also talks of Hayman's "skillful handling of technical points".
- At Cambridge, Hayman was awarded the 1st Smith's Prize in 1948 and in the following year he shared the Adams Prize with John Charles Burkill, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and John MacNaughton Whittaker.
- Hayman's fellowship at St John's College, Cambridge continued until 1950 and he was a Visiting Lecturer at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island during 1949-50.
- Hayman spent the summer of 1950 at Stanford University in California.
- At the University of Exeter, Hayman was promoted to Reader in Mathematics in 1953.
- Also in 1956 Hayman was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.
- In 1966 Walter Hayman visited Moscow and when he returned, together with his wife, he founded the British Mathematical Olympiad.
- The Haymans set and marked the questions for the British Olympiad Competition.
- One of these was Anne Carolyn Hayman, born on 23 April 1951, who was educated at Putney High School for Girls and then went on to obtain a B.A. in Classics and Philosophy.
- While at Imperial College, Hayman published many deep research articles and also superb monographs skilfully written so that only undergraduate mathematics is required as a prerequisite.
- Hayman's next monograph was Meromorphic functions (1964).
- Of all the books which Hayman wrote during his thirty years at Imperial College, the most significant was almost certainly the first volume of Subharmonic functions (1976).
- The project to write the text was a joint one by Hayman and Patrick Brendan Kennedy, but sadly Kennedy died in 1967.
- Hayman promised a second volume on the theory of subharmonic functions in the plane and he did keep his promise but it took 13 years to complete.
- One further important text by Hayman that we should mention is the second edition of Multivalent functions published in 1994.
- We have already mentioned some of the honours that Hayman has received.
- As an international figure, Professor Hayman has influenced researchers of all nations and of all ages during his periods at both Imperial College and the University of York.
- Few have been as dedicated to their chosen area of mathematics as Walter Hayman, or promoted it in the world in such a dedicated fashion.
- Another honour we must mention is the special 2008 volume of Computational Methods and Function Theory dedicated to Hayman on the occasion of his 80th birthday.
- He is best known, perhaps for his work on the minimum modulus of large entire functions, for his proof of the asymptotic Bieberbach conjecture and for the so-called "Hayman Alternative" in value distribution theory.
- The present volume is dedicated to Walter by his many students, friends and admirers.
- Finally we note that Hayman gives "music, travel, television" as his hobbies.
Born 6 January 1926, Cologne, Germany. Died 1 January 2020, London England.
View full biography at MacTutor
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Origin Germany
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
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- @J-J-O'Connor
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References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
