Henry Forder

New Zealand mathematician (1889–1981)

Henry George Forder

Born| 27 September 1889

Shotesham All Saints, near Norwich, England

Died| 21 September 1981(1981-09-21) (aged 91)

Point Chevalier, Auckland, New Zealand

Henry George Forder (27 September 1889 – 21 September 1981) was a New Zealand mathematician.

## Academic career

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Born in Shotesham All Saints, near Norwich, he won a scholarships first to a Grammar school and then to University of Cambridge. After teaching mathematics at a number of schools, he was appointed to the chair of mathematics at Auckland University College in New Zealand in 1933. He was very critical of the state of the New Zealand curriculum and set about writing a series of well received textbooks.

His Foundations of Euclidean Geometry (1927) was reviewed by F.W. Owens, who noted that 40 pages are devoted to "concepts of classes, relations, linear order, non archimedean systems, ..." and that order axioms together with a continuity axiom and a Euclidean parallel axiom are the required foundation. The object achieved is a "continuous and rigorous development of the [Euclidean] doctrine in the light of modern investigations."[1]

In 1929 Forder obtained drawings and notes of Robert William Genese on the exterior algebra of Grassmann. He relied on methods of H. F. Baker in Principles of Geometry to extend Genese's beginning into a complete development with applications throughout geometry. When The Calculus of Extension appeared in 1941 it was reviewed by Homer V. Craig: "The theorem density is exceptionally high and consequently despite the superior exposition it is not an easy book to work straight through – perhaps the key chapters suffer from a lack of recapitulation... [It] provides the best exposition of the fundamental processes of the Ausdehnungslehre and the most inclusive treatment of the geometrical applications available at present."[2]

Henry Forder was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1947 and received an honorary DSc from the University of Auckland in 1959.[3]

## Forder lectureship

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The Forder Lectureship was established jointly by the London Mathematical Society and the New Zealand Mathematical Society in his honour in 1986.[4]

## Selected works

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* 1927: The Foundations of Euclidean Geometry[1] via Internet Archive
* 1930: A School Geometry
* 1931: Higher Course Geometry
* 1941: The Calculus of Extension[2] via Internet Archive
* 1950: Geometry via Internet Archive
* 1953: Coordinates in Geometry

## References

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1. ^ a b Owens, F. W. (1929). "Review: The Foundations of Euclidean Geometry by Henry George Forder" (PDF). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 35 (6): 881–882. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1929-04820-1.
2. ^ a b Craig, Homer V. (1943). "Review: The calculus of extension by Henry George Forder" (PDF). Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. 49 (7): 524–527. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1943-07937-2.
3. ^ "Forder biography". www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk. Retrieved 17 April 2018.
4. ^ Elizabeth Fisher (7 September 2012). "LMS-NZMS Forder-Aitken Lectureships". London Mathematical Society. Retrieved 5 August 2014.

* John C. Butcher (1985) "Obituary: Henry George Forder", Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society 17(2): 161 doi:10.1112/blms/17.2.162

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Recipients of the Hector Medal of the Royal Society of New Zealand

* Leonard Cockayne (1912)
* Thomas Easterfield (1913)
* Elsdon Best (1914)
* Patrick Marshall (1915)
* Ernest Rutherford (1916)
* Charles Chilton (1917)
* Thomas Cheeseman (1918)
* Philip Robertson (1919)
* Percy Smith (1920)
* Robert Speight (1921)
* Coleridge Farr (1922)
* George Hudson (1923)
* Donald Petrie (1924)
* Bernard Aston (1925)
* Harry Skinner (1926)
* Charles Cotton (1927)
* Duncan Sommerville (1928)
* George Thomson (1929)
* John Holloway (1930)
* William Percival Evans (1931)
* Te Rangi Hiroa (Peter H. Buck) (1932)
* John Marwick, Noel Benson (1933)
* Charles Ernest Weatherburn (1934)
* William Benham (1935)
* Walter Oliver (1936)
* John Reader Hosking (1937)
* Herbert Williams (1938)
* Arthur Bartrum (1939)
* Donald Macleod (1940)
* Harold Finlay (1941)
* Harry Allan (1942)
* Bob Briggs (1943)
* Johannes C. Andersen (1944)
* John Henderson (1945)
* Henry Forder (1946)
* Baden Powell (1947)
* G. H. Cunningham (1948)
* Robert Anthony Robinson (1949)
* Ernest Beaglehole (1950)
* Francis John Turner (1951)
* Keith Bullen (1952)
* Lance Richdale (1953)
* Lucy Cranwell (1954)
* Brian Shorland (1955)
* Roger Duff (1956)
* Harold Wellman (1957)
* Alister McLellan (1958)
* Barry Fell (1959)
* Ted Chamberlain (1960)
* Harry Bloom (1961)
* Ralph Piddington (1962)
* Charles Fleming (1963)
* Derek Lawden (1964)
* Richard Dell (1965)
* Jack Holloway (1966)
* Con Cambie (1967)
* Gilbert Archey (1968)
* Doug Coombs (1969)
* Brian Wybourne (1970)
* Ira Cunningham (1971)
* Ted Bollard (1972)
* Michael Hartshorn (1973)
* Herbert Purves (1974)
* Robert Hayes (1975)
* Jack Dodd (1976)
* Cam Reid (1977)
* Richard Matthews (1978)
* Leon Phillips (1979)
* Graham Liggins (1980)
* Trevor Hatherton (1981)
* Roy Kerr (1982)
* Ray Forster (1983)
* Rod Bieleski (1984)
* Peter de la Mare (1985)
* Robin Carrell (1986)
* Jim Ellis (1987)
* Dan Walls (1988)
* Patricia Bergquist (1989)
* Peter Wardle (1990)
* Warren Roper (1991)
* Roger Green (1992)
* Dick Walcott (1993)
* Geoff Stedman (1994)
* Bob Jolly (1995)
* John C. Butcher (1996)
* Ted Baker (1997)
* Paul Callaghan, Jeff Tallon (1998)
* George Seber (1999)
* Peter Schwerdtfeger (2001)
* Ken MacKenzie (2003)
* Ian Witten (2005)
* Richard Furneaux (2006)
* Timothy Haskell (2007)
* Gaven Martin (2008)
* Peter Steel (2009)
* Grant Williams (2010)
* Rod Downey (2011)
* Margaret Brimble (2012)
* Richard Blaikie (2013)
* Marston Conder (2014)
* Ian Brown (2015)
* Stéphane Coen (2016)
* Sally Brooker (2017)
* Matt Visser (2018)
* Jadranka Travaš-Sejdić (2019)
* Eamonn O'Brien (2020)
* Eric Le Ru (2021)
* Murray Cox (2022)
* Niels Kjærgaard (2023)

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