Person: Parry, William
Bill Parry was an English mathematician who worked in the study of dynamical systems, and, in particular, in ergodic theory.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- William was always known as Bill.
- Called the 11-plus examination (since it was taken after the age of 11), it began to be used in this way only a year or so before Parry sat it.
- Parry attended a school which specialised in woodwork and metalwork but his mathematical abilities were spotted by a teacher who persuaded him not to leave school early.
- Continuing with school education in such a technical school was a problem, however, for there were no classes for Parry to attend in mathematics and arrangements had to be made for him to attend mathematics classes at Birmingham Technical College.
- After passing the examinations at Birmingham Technical College, Parry was allowed to enter University College, London, to study mathematics.
- During his one year course at Liverpool, Parry applied to Imperial College, London, to study there for his doctorate in mathematics.
- After being awarded his doctorate by Imperial College, London, Parry was appointed as a lecturer at Birmingham University in 1960.
- Parry's first paper On the b-expansions of real numbers was published in 1960.
- In Ergodic properties of some permutation processes (1962) Parry considered two modifications of a process of Maurice Kendall made by H E Daniels, showing that the first modification and the one-dimensional second modification are ergodic.
- Particularly important in Parry's development as a research mathematician was the year 1962-63 during which he worked at Yale University in the United States with a group of other young mathematicians interested in ergodic theory.
- In On Rohlin's formula for entropy (1964), Parry gives a formula for computing the entropy of an ergodic stationary non-atomic stochastic process with a finite number of states.
- Parry was back working in his home city of Coventry when he was appointed to the University of Warwick as a Reader in 1968.
- Parry published over 80 papers and a number of fine books.
- Parry retired in 1999 and was appointed Professor Emeritus.
- Bill Parry listed his hobbies as theatre, concerts, and walking.
Born 3 July 1934, Coventry, England. Died 20 August 2006, Coventry, England.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin England
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
-
- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
