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| Abbreviation | EMS |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1883; 142 years ago (1883) |
| Type | Mathematical society |
| Location | |
President | Tara E. Brendle |
| Award | Sir Edmund Whittaker Memorial Prize |
| Website | www |
TheEdinburgh Mathematical Society is amathematical society for academics inScotland.
The Society was founded in 1883 by a group ofEdinburgh school teachers and academics, on the initiative ofAlexander Yule FraserFRSE andAndrew Jeffrey Gunion BarclayFRSE,[1][2] both maths teachers atGeorge Watson's College, andCargill Gilston Knott, the assistant ofPeter Guthrie Tait, professor of physics at theUniversity of Edinburgh.[3] The first president, elected at first meeting on 2 February 1883, was J.S. Mackay, the head mathematics master at theEdinburgh Academy.[3]
The Society was founded at a time when mathematics societies were being created around the world, but it was unusual in being founded by school teachers rather than university lecturers.[3] This was because, due to the very small number of mathematical academic positions in Scotland at the time, many skilled mathematics graduates chose to become schoolteachers instead.[4] The fifty five founding members contained teachers, ministers and students, as well as a number of academics from theUniversity of Cambridge.[2] The proportion of teachers remained high compared to other mathematical societies, and by 1926 university members made up only one-third of the total members.[5] However, the dominance of teachers in the numbers of the society declined towards the 1930s, and between 1930 and 1935 no papers were presented in theProceedings by teachers.[4] This was due to an increase in the number of academic positions available and the new requirement for teachers to undergo an additional year of vocational training.[4]
The Edinburgh Mathematical Society is now mainly for academics.[4]
The Society organises and funds meetings and other research events throughout Scotland. There are normally eight meetings a year, at which talks are presented by mathematicians.[6]
Every four years it awards theSir Edmund Whittaker Memorial Prize to an outstanding mathematician with a Scottish connection.[7] The Society is a corporate member of theEuropean Mathematical Society,[8] and in 2008 it became a member of theCouncil for the Mathematical Sciences.[6]
The society releases anacademic journal, theProceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society, published byCambridge University Press (ISSN 0013–0915.)[9] TheProceedings were first published in 1884, and are issued three times a year, covering a range ofpure andapplied mathematics subjects.[6]
Between 1909 and 1961, the Society also published theEdinburgh Mathematical Notes, on the suggestion of George Alexander Gibson, a professor at theUniversity of Glasgow, who wished to remove the more elementary or pedagogical articles from theProceedings.[10]
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