Person: Spencer (2), Anthony
Anthony Spencer was an English applied mathematician who worked in the mechanics of advanced materials.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- The staff who remained were overworked but Spencer was lucky to have an excellent mathematics teacher, William A Burns, whose war service was in the Home Guard so he still taught at the school.
- He instilled a love of mathematics in Spencer.
- Spencer graduated from Queen Mary's Grammar School in 1947 and was faced with a choice of doing National Service before entering university, or postponing the military service until his education was completed.
- After graduating from Cambridge, Spencer began studying at Birmingham University for his Ph.D. working on the brittle fracture of elastic-plastic materials with Frank Nabarro as his supervisor.
- However, Nabarro left Birmingham only ten months after Spencer began his studies.
- References to the collaborative work of Tony Spencer, Ronald Rivlin and Albert Green are standard citations in treatises in modern continuum mechanics.
- Indeed many of Spencer's early publications were with Ronald Rivlin, Albert Green or both.
- Promotion came quickly for Spencer who was promoted to a Reader in 1963 then, following the death of John Adkins the Professor of Theoretical Mechanics, he became Professor of Theoretical Mechanics and Head of Department on 1 April 1965.
- Spencer spent time as a visiting professor in a number of other institutions.
- In 1994 Spencer retired from his chair at the University of Nottingham, having reached the age of 65, and was made Professor Emeritus.
- Spencer received many honours for his outstanding contributions.
- In October 2007 the University of Nottingham established the Spencer Institute of Theoretical and Computational Mechanics, named in his honour.
- The International Journal of Engineering Science, of which Spencer was an editor from 1968 to 1995, issued a Special Issue as a Memorial to him.
Born 23 August 1929, Birmingham, England. Died 26 January 2008, Nottingham, England.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin England
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
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- 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
