OBITUARIES: PROFESSOR BILL PARRY ; 11-Plus-Failure Mathematician FRS

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Bill Parry had a meagre school education but went on be an outstanding mathematician in the field of dynamical systems and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He specialised in ergodic theory, which has close connections with probability theory, statistical mechanics, number theory, differential equations and information theory.

Parry was born in Coventry in 1934, the sixth of a family of seven children. He failed his 11-plus examination and at the age of 13 went to a technical school which specialised in woodwork and metalwork but where a teacher noticed his mathematical ability and persuaded him to stay in the sixth form. Because the school was unable to provide proper …