Profile: Peter Taylor

This article was published in the AMT's internal publication, The Globe, when Peter was appointed as Executive Director of the Australian Mathematics Trust in late 1995. It has also undergone some further minor editing.

I was born in North Adelaide in 1947 to Jim and Betty, who had met each other as bank clerks with the Commonwealth Bank in the late 1930s. My father had volunteered for the army and joined a tank regiment in which he served in North Borneo and Brunei. My parents married in 1943 during leave which my father had received at short notice. Under wartime conditons, my mother contnued to work with the bank during the war, but as was the case for married females at the time she eventually had to resign after the war. My father continued with the Bank and later on became a branch manager and finally Chief Inspector for South Australia and receiving a 40 year gold watch, which I still have.

I guess I was a typical baby boomer. My family, which soon also included a younger sister Susan, now a medical doctor in Adelaide, lived in a housing trust estate in Edwardstown, a good working class suburb, until I was 18 years old. Our local member, Frank Walsh, was the Leader of the Labor Party and perennial Leader of the Opposition during the long regime of Sir Thomas Playford as Premier of South Australia.

I attended Edwardstown Primary School, where classes of 60 were not uncommon. My parents made major sacrifices then to send me to a private secondary school. This school, Pulteney Grammar School, provided me with excellent intellectual challenge, particularly in mathematics, where I had two very inspiring teachers in Bruce Robson and Ellis Harris. My brother John, born a few years after me, attended the same school and is currently a senior master there, specialising in mathematics also.

I went on to the University of Adelaide, where I stayed for 8 years. My PhD was done there under the supervision of Ernie Tuck, at the time a Reader in the Mathematics Department. I was his first full-time PhD graduate, although John Noye, from the academic staff, preceded me. Numerical Analysis was my main interest, and in my work I did some modelling of shallow water ship hydrodynamics, solving singular integral equations and matching asymptotic expansions.

Ernie did engage after my thesis an engineer from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Bob Beck, who was able to convert my mathematical results into engineering terms, enabling the calculation of the forces on ships berthed in shallow water due to their exposure to waves, enabling the calculation of the strengths of moorages. This had some application, for example at the time when the Bougainville mines were operating large ore carriers had to be moored nearby in exposed positions. Ernie is now the Elder Professor of Mathematics at the University of Adelaide and people are surprised he is old enough to be my supervisor - he has no grey hairs and looks as though he could be in his early forties.

On graduation I obtained a job as an Assistant Lecturer at the Canberra College of Advanced Education (CCAE), now the University of Canberra, where I still am. Soon after arrival in Canberra I met Lois, and we have been together from then on. At the time Lois was a technical assistant in the Division of Plant Industry at the CSIRO. She later studied for a degree at the ANU in Anthropology and Prehistory, and now works in that area, in the Research School of Earth Sciences of the ANU.

When I first arrived at the CCAE it was a teaching-only institution. Research was actively discouraged. After submitting a research paper for typing I was called in by the Head of School and warned not to do this again. I went down to the ANU and paid a mathematical typist to do it. I did find plenty to occupy myself with however, developing lecture materials in an institution which was growing rapidly. This interest led me to the Open University in 1978. There I worked with Oliver Penrose (brother of Sir Roger) in developing materials for the second generation of their second year Applied Mathematics course, with a heavy accent on mathematical modelling. In fact, I co-authored with Oliver the first book on Differential Equations and was later contracted to write the book on Linear Programming. I also recorded the audio-tape for the Differential Equations section, a fascinating experience in the Alexandra Palace Studios of the BBC in London, where I was told King George VI had made his war-time broadcasts. This experience with the Open University sustained me until the early 1980s, by which time another interest had taken over.

When I joined the staff of the CCAE in 1972 one of the first people I met was Peter O'Halloran, an energetic Senior Lecturer developing courses in Operations Research and particularly in Discrete Mathematics. He went on study-leave in mid 1972, not to return until mid 1973. He engaged me in many conversations over the following two to three years telling me about the Mathematics Competition he had seen in in Canada and how he would like to try the idea in Australia. I was always interested. Despite the inspiration of my own teachers, I had not taken part in any external mathematics activities at school. It had become apparent by the time I reached my honours year that most of the other students had gone to a few schools which had taken part in enrichment activities. They had clearly provided a maturity which helped in tertiary study and I had regretted not having had the opportunity. I made it clear to Peter that I would always be available as pert of that team, when assembled.

The historic meeting to establish a mathematics competition in Canberra took place at Peter's home on 11 April 1976.

Most of the rest is now history. We agreed to conduct a mathematics competition in Canberra 10 weeks hence. It was agreed to keep the Problems and Administrative sections separate. Warren Atkins chaired the Problems Committee while I chaired the Administration Committee. Peter took an overview. My role involved giving every student a number, a task which took hours, given the avalanche of entries which we received. In 1977 we decided that this was unnecessary.

My later experiences with the AMC, AMOC, Tournament of Towns, research, etc are probably well-known to readers and I won't refer further to this involvement here. Needless to say, the activities of the Trust gradually dominated my working life.

In my spare time my main interest has been squash. I had played in first grade in Adelaide, where the atmosphere was quite charged, with hundreds of spectators on Friday nights. However some of my toughest matches were against the Head of the Department at the time, Professor Ren Potts, whom I played on a weekly basis.

On coming to Canberra I was selected in the ACT team which played in interstate competition. My involvement in squash decreased with the arrival of family. However I have played in competition until this year and I still play regularly with my colleague Graham Pollard (who was ACT squash champion for more than a decade) and elder son Greg, who is rapidly closing the gap on me.

Greg (21) is now at University, training to be a primary school teacher with a maths major at the University of Canberra, and is engaged to Natasha. He expects to be given a licence to teach in mid 1999. He was a member (as goalkeeper) of the ACT's under 11 first division runner up team (Belnorth) and a member (as striker) of the premier team in the under 15 interschool league in the ACT. He also obtained Silver and Bronze Medals in the ACT Athletics Junior Championships in the Triple Jump and Hurdles.

Stephanie (19) is now studying Medicine at the University of Adelaide, where my sister Susan graduated and her son is also a student. Stephanie has had an excellent start to her studies, with 2 High Distinctions and a Credit in her first year. She represented the ACT in Athletics as a Junior at sprints and jumps, and held ACT records and was ACT Champion for her age group in the Triple and High Jumps.

Ben (17) is in his final year of high school. He has not yet declared what he wants to do after that. He is a member of Canberra Grammar School's first Basketball Team and coaches a junior team at the school. He is a die-hard supporter of the Adelaide Crows (AFL) Football Team.

Through the children's interest in athletics I became a qualified track starter with Athletics Australia. I also enjoy cycling around Canberr'a excellent network of bike paths, listening to heavy metal and classical music, and watching some of the earlier movies, such as the Hitchcock movies of the 1930s.

When I was young I also played Australian football (the only real variety). Wine lovers are sometimes surprised to know that I actually played a few games in the Southern League (immediately south of Adelaide) for McLaren Vale, the main southern vales town where Hardy's is located. I played as a ruckman and full forward, sometimes against recently retired players from the Adelaide (SANFL) league.

I am optimistic for the future of the Trust. Since Peter's death I have been impressed by the continual commitment of the many volunteers, and all the activities have continued to grow, and in fact we are developing some new activities.

Through Peter the Trust has developed many philosophies. It is one of my aims to ensure that we do not lose sight of these. There were important reasons why the Trust became the institution it is today.

revised (slightly) in February 1999