Life
He was born in Woolwich, a suburb in south-east London. He began research as a student of Abram Besicovitch, but soon switched to algebraic topology. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 1956. His thesis, written under the direction of Shaun Wylie, was titled On spectral sequences and self-obstruction invariants. He held the Fielden Chair at the University of Manchester (1964–1970), and became Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry at the University of Cambridge (1970–1989). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1964.
His interests included mountaineering—he would demonstrate how to climb right round a table at parties—and the game of Go.
He died in a car accident in Brampton, Cambridgeshire. There is a memorial plaque for him in the Chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Read more about this topic: Frank Adams
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Either life entails courage, or it ceases to be life.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“We have had many harbingers and forerunners; but of a purely spiritual life, history has afforded no example. I mean we have yet no man who has leaned entirely on his character, and eaten angels’ food; who, trusting to his sentiments, found life made of miracles; who, working for universal aims, found himself fed, he knew not how; clothed, sheltered, and weaponed, he knew not how, and yet it was done by his own hands.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)