Editing Christopher Zeeman (section)

==Academic career==
Zeeman is one of the founders of engulfing theory in piecewise linear topology and is credited with working out the engulfing theorem (independently also worked out by John Stallings), which can be used to prove the piecewise linear version of the [[Poincaré conjecture]] for all dimensions above four.<ref>'The generalised Poincaré conjecture', Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 67:270 (1961)</ref><ref>'The Poincaré conjecture for n greater than or equal to 5', Topology of 3-manifolds and related topics (Proc. The Univ. of Georgia Institute, 1961), 198–204, Prentice–Hall, 1962</ref>

After working at [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]] (during which he spent a year abroad at [[University of Chicago]] and [[Princeton University|Princeton]] as a [[Harkness Fellowship|Harkness Fellow]]) and the [[Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques]], he founded the Mathematics Department and Mathematics Research Centre at the new [[University of Warwick]] in 1964. In his own words
:''I was 38 and had developed some fairly strong ideas on how to run a department and create a Mathematics Institute: I wanted to combine the flexibility of options that are common in most American universities, with the kind of tutorial care to be found in Oxford and Cambridge.''<ref>E.C.Zeeman, Mathematical Association President's report, 2004, [http://www.m-a.org.uk/annual_reports/annual_report_200304/ M-A.org.uk]</ref>

Zeeman's style of leadership was informal, but inspirational, and he rapidly took Warwick to international recognition for the quality of its mathematical research. The first six appointments he made were all in topology, enabling the department to immediately become internationally competitive, followed by six in algebra, and finally six in analysis and six in applied mathematics. He was able to trade four academic appointments for funding that enabled PhD students to give undergraduate supervision in groups of two for the first two years, in a manner similar to the tutorial system at Oxford and Cambridge.  He remained at Warwick until 1988, but from 1966 to 1967 he was a visiting professor at the [[University of California, Berkeley|University of California at Berkeley]], after which his research turned to dynamical systems, inspired by many of the world leaders in this field, including [[Stephen Smale]] and [[René Thom]], who both spent time at Warwick. In 1963, Zeeman showed that causality in special relativity expressed by the preservation of partial ordering is given exactly and only by the [[Lorentz transforms]].<ref name="Causality">{{cite journal |last1=Zeeman |first1=E. C. |title=Causality Implies the Lorentz Group |journal=Journal of Mathematical Physics |date=1 April 1964 |volume=5 |issue=4 |pages=490–493 |doi=10.1063/1.1704140 |bibcode=1964JMP.....5..490Z |issn=0022-2488}}</ref> Zeeman subsequently spent a sabbatical with Thom at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in Paris, where he became interested in [[catastrophe theory]]. On his return to Warwick, he taught an undergraduate course in Catastrophe Theory that became immensely popular with students; his lectures generally were "standing room only". In 1973 he gave an MSc course at Warwick giving a complete detailed proof of Thom's classification of elementary catastrophes, mainly following an unpublished manuscript, "Right-equivalence" written by [[John Mather (mathematician)|John Mather]] at Warwick in 1969. [[David Trotman]] wrote up his notes of the course as an MSc thesis. These were then distributed in thousands of copies throughout the world and published both in the proceedings of a 1975 Seattle conference on catastrophe theory and its applications,<ref>D.J.A.Trotman and E.C.Zeeman, The classification of elementary catastrophes of codimension less than or equal to 5, in Structural stability, the theory of catastrophes, and applications in the sciences. Proceedings of the Conference held at Battelle Seattle Research Center, Seattle, Wash., 21–25 April 1975. Edited by P. Hilton. Lecture Notes in Mathematics, Vol. 525. Springer-Verlag, Berlin-New York, 1976</ref> and in a 1977 collection of papers on catastrophe theory by Zeeman.<ref>E. C. Zeeman, Catastrophe theory. Selected papers, 1972–1977. Addison–Wesley Publishing Co., Reading, Mass.–London–Amsterdam, 1977</ref> In 1974 Zeeman gave an [[List of International Congresses of Mathematicians Plenary and Invited Speakers|invited address at the International Congress of Mathematicians]] in Vancouver, about applications of catastrophe theory.

[[File:Christopher Zeeman 2009.jpg|thumb|upright|Zeeman at the Warwick Mathematics Institute in December 2009]]
Zeeman was elected as a [[Fellow of the Royal Society]] in 1975, and was awarded the Society's Faraday Medal in 1988. He was the 63rd President of the [[London Mathematical Society]] in 1986–88 giving his Presidential Address on 18 November 1988 ''On the classification of dynamical systems''. He was awarded the [[Senior Whitehead Prize]] of the Society in 1982. He was the Society's first Forder lecturer, involving a lecture tour in New Zealand, in 1987. Between 1988 and 1994 he was the [[Gresham Professor of Geometry|Professor of Geometry]] at [[Gresham College]].<ref name="gresham">{{cite web| url=http://www.gresham.ac.uk/professors-and-speakers/sir-christopher-zeeman | title=Sir Christopher Zeeman | publisher=[[Gresham College]] | location=London, UK | accessdate=8 March 2015 }}</ref>

In 1978, Zeeman gave the televised series of [[Royal Institution Christmas Lectures|Christmas Lectures at the Royal Institution]].<ref>{{Cite web
 | title = Mathematics into Pictures, 1978 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
 | url = https://www.rigb.org/christmas-lectures/watch/1978/mathematics-into-pictures/
 | access-date = 7 February 2022
 }}</ref> From these grew the Mathematics and Engineering Masterclasses for both primary and secondary school children that now flourish in forty centers in the United Kingdom.<ref>{{Cite web
 | title = Royal Institution Maths and Engineering Masterclasses
 | url = http://www.rigb.org/education/masterclasses
 | access-date = 22 August 2012
}}</ref>

In 1988, Zeeman became Principal of [[Hertford College, Oxford]]. The following year he was appointed an honorary fellow of [[Christ's College, Cambridge]]. He received a [[Knight Bachelor|knighthood]] in the [[1991 Birthday Honours]] for "mathematical excellence and service to British mathematics and mathematics education".<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=52563 |date=15 June 1991 |page=2 |supp=y}}</ref><ref>{{London Gazette |issue=52858 |date=10 March 1992 |page=4257}}</ref> He was invited to become President of [[Mathematical Association|The Mathematical Association]] in 2003 and based his book ''Three-dimensional Theorems for Schools'' on his 2004 Presidential Address. On Friday 6 May 2005, the University of Warwick's new Mathematics and Statistics building was named the Zeeman Building in his honour. He became an Honorary Member of [[The Mathematical Association]] in 2006. In September 2006, the [[London Mathematical Society]] and the [[Institute of Mathematics and its Applications]] awarded him the [[:Category:David Crighton medalists|David Crighton medal]] in recognition of his long and distinguished service to mathematics and the mathematical community.<ref>{{Cite web
 |title       = Honours and Awards Newsletter
 |author      = London Mathematical Society
 |url         = http://www.lms.ac.uk/newsletter/352/352_03.html
 |access-date = 8 July 2007
 |url-status     = dead
 |archiveurl  = https://web.archive.org/web/20071012060300/http://www.lms.ac.uk/newsletter/352/352_03.html
 |archivedate = 12 October 2007}}</ref> The medal is awarded triennially, and Zeeman was the second-ever recipient of the award.<ref>{{Cite web
 | title = List of IMA-LMS Prizewinners
 | author = London Mathematical Society
 | url = http://www.lms.ac.uk/prizes/list-ima-lms-prize-winners
 | access-date = 10 December 2014
}}</ref> He died on 13 February 2016.<ref>{{Cite web
 | title = Sir Christopher Zeeman FRS (1925–2016) 
 | publisher = Mathematics Institute, [[University of Warwick]]
 | url = http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/maths/general/news/new/?newsItem=094d434552cfc0810152eaf835027917
 | date = 16 February 2016 | access-date = 16 February 2016
}}</ref>