Person Jones; Vaughan Frederick Randal (1952 - 2020) Jones Vaughan Frederick Randal 1952 - 2020 New Zealand Male Gisborne, New Zealand 31/12/1952 19521231 06/09/2020 20200906

Mathematician Pure mathematics Mathematical physics Algebra Knot theory Education: St Peter's School; Auckland Grammar School; University of Auckland, BSc (1972), MSc (1973); University of Geneva, PhD (1979) Career: Lecturer, University of California, Los Angeles (1980–1981); Lecturer, University of Pennsylvania (1981–1985); Professor of Mathematics, later Emeritus Professor, University of California, Berkeley (1985-2020); Stevenson Distinguished Professor of mathematics, Vanderbilt University (2011-2020) Honours: DCNZM 2002; KNZM 2009 Memberships: FRSNZ; Honorary Vice-President for life of the International Guild of Knot Tyers (1992); Australian Academy of Science (1992); American Mathematical Society (2012) Medals/Awards: Fields Medal (1990), Rutherford Medal (1991); the Jones Medal of the Royal Society of New Zealand named in his honour (2010) Married Martha Myers, professor of medicine; three children Vaughan Jones’s first work was a complete classification of the action of finite groups on von Neumann algebras of type II. He went on to define an ‘index’ for a subfactor of a II1 factor, and found its possible values, most strikingly the unsuspected discrete series 4 cos2(pi/n). This work has profoundly changed the perspective of its whole field. It also produced a completely new family of representations of the braid groups, and Vaughan showed how these gave a new polynomial invariant for knots. On one side this transformed knot theory, while in another direction it opened up a new field embracing statistical mechanics, conformal quantum field theory, and the quantisation of Lie groups. Vaughan’s most recent work concerns planar algebra and representations of Richard Thompson’s groups F and T. Sir Vaughan Jones KNZM FRS died on 6 September 2020. Fellow 15/03/1990 37 References: Robin J H Clark and Michael J Kelly, 'New Zealand, New Zealanders and the Royal Society' in NR 1994 vol 48 pp 263-281 Sources: https://royalsociety.org/people/vaughan-jones-11708/ (accessed 9 September 2020) Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaughan_Jones (accessed 9 September 2020) International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families - ISAAR(CPF) - Ottawa 1996 ISBN 0-9696035-3-3 National Council on Archives, Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997 31 Dec 1952 - 06 Dec 2020 NA1613 21/11/2001 Andyg Pmab 17/12/2025 RS_NET\VirginiaM Yes http://viaf.org/viaf/73925463 32677cae-937e-4166-a09a-e8ce6dbf5edb