Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of RICHARD RADO FRS (1906 - 1989)

SECTION A BIOGRAPHICAL NCUACS 50.6.94/A.1-NCUACS 50.6.94/A.128

SECTION B NOTEBOOKS NCUACS 50.6.94/B.1-NCUACS 50.6.94/B.105

SECTION C READING UNIVERSITY NCUACS 50.6.94/C.1-NCUACS 50.6.94/C.49

SECTION D PUBLICATIONS NCUACS 50.6.94/D.1-NCUACS 50.6.94/D.289

SECTION E LECTURES NCUACS 50.6.94/E.1-NCUACS 50.6.94/E.169

SECTION F SOCIETIES AND ORGANISATIONS NCUACS 50.6.94/F.1-NCUACS 50.6.94/F.59

SECTION G VISITS AND CONFERENCES NCUACS 50.6.94/G.1-NCUACS 50.6.94/G.196

SECTION H CORRESPONDENCE NCUACS 50.6.94/H.1-NCUACS 50.6.94/H.217

SECTION J REFERENCES AND RECOMMENDATIONS NCUACS 50.6.94/J.1-NCUACS 50.6.94/J.157

The material is presented in the order given in the list of contents. This large collection includes important biographical material and full records of Rado's mathematical research and teaching. He used the Stolze-Schrey system of shorthand as a student in Germany and continued to use it for drafting correspondence, papers and lectures for the rest of his career.

Section A, Biographical, includes extensive correspondence from Rado's student days in Germany, 1925-1927 and from his first years as a Jewish refugee in England, principally 1933-1936 when he was based at Cambridge University.

Section B, Notebooks, comprises the student notebooks used by Rado for lecture notes, 1927-1933 and the mathematical notebooks or diaries that he kept for the rest of his career, 1928-1983. The student notebooks include notes on the lecture courses of mathematicians E. Schmidt and I. Schur, the physicists M. Born, M. Planck and E. Schrödinger, and the psychologist W. Köhler. A sequence of unidentified notebooks, 1934-1936, may have been used for lectures given by Rado at Cambridge during this period.

Section C, Reading University, includes some records relating to the university Mathematics Department and the central university administration.

Section D, Publications, presents records of Rado's preparation of his mathematical papers. Collaborative papers, including those with Paul Erdös, are particularly well documented in drafts and correspondence. Where applicable reference has been made to the Bibliography in the Royal Society memoir of Rado (NCUACS 50.6.94/A.1) in the form Bibliog. ...

Section E, Lectures, comprises both university teaching and invitation and public lectures. The university teaching documentation includes a little Cambridge material and full records for the courses taught by Rado at Sheffield University, King's College London and Reading University.

Section F, Societies and organisations, documents a number of Rado's major professional commitments including the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, the London Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association. Also of interest is material relating to St Bartholomew's Grammar School, Newbury; Rado served as Reading University representative on the school's governing body.

Section G, Visits and conferences, provides documentation of this aspect of Rado's professional life, 1936 and 1950-1983. There are records of his regular attendance at British Mathematical Colloquia, 1950-1979, combinatorics conferences in Europe and North America, 1968-1983, and his Visiting Professorship at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, 1971-1972.

Section H, Correspondence, presents an alphabetical sequence of Rado's principal mathematical correspondents including G.A. Dirac 1951-1985, Paul Erdös, 1934-1987, E.C. Milner, 1957-1985 and L. Mirsky, 1948-1983. There is also a chronological sequence of shorter correspondence, 1948-1986.

Section J, References and recommendations, includes records of Rado's external examining and refereeing for journals.

Compiled by Peter Harper and Timothy E. Powell

The work of the National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists, and the production of this catalogue, are made possible by the support of the following societies and organisations:

The Institute of Physics

The Royal Society

The Wellcome Trust

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are very grateful to Mr Peter Rado for making his father's papers available, and for information and advice.

NOT ALL THE MATERIAL IN THE COLLECTION IS YET AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION.

ENQUIRIES SHOULD BE ADDRESSED IN THE FIRST INSTANCE TO:

THE KEEPER

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND MANUSCRIPTS

UNIVERSITY OF READING

The papers were received in June 1990 and August 1992 from Mr Peter Alan Rado, son.

OUTLINE OF THE CAREER OF RICHARD RADO

Richard Rado was born in Berlin in 1906. He was educated at the Universities of Berlin and Göttingen, taking his D.Phil. degree at Berlin in 1933 for a thesis entitled 'Studien zur Kombinatorik', working under Issai Schur. He was also influenced by Erhard Schmidt during this period. He married Luise Zadek in March 1933 and, as a consequence of Hitler's accession to power in Germany, the Rados, being Jewish, moved to England. Rado had obtained a scholarship of £300 a year through the recommendation of F.A. Lindemann (later Lord Cherwell), to enable him to study at Cambridge University. Hé entered Fitzwilliam House (later College) in 1933 and studied for a Ph.D. under G.H. Hardy (awarded 1935 for his thesis on 'Linear Transformations of Sequences'). He stayed on at Cambridge with a temporary Lecturership until 1936. During this period, 1933-1936, Rado made contact with a number of influential resident mathematicians, who included in addition to Hardy, J.E. Littlewood, P. Hall and A.S. Besicovitch, and with fellow refugees such as B.H. Neumann and Hans Heilbronn. It was in 1934 that he met for the first time the Hungarian mathematiclan Paul Erdös with whom he was to have many productive collaborations over five decades. Rado was subsequently Assistant Lecturer and Lecturer in Mathematics, Sheffield University, 1936-1947, Reader in Mathematics, King's College London, 1947-1954, Professor of Pure Mathematics, Reading University, 1954-1971. He spent the academic year immediately after retirement, 1971-1972, as Visiting Professor in the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization at the University of Waterloo, Ontario.

Rado's mathematical research was particularly distinguished for his pioneering work in many aspects of combinatorics including abstract independent structures, transversal theory and extensions of Ramsey's theorem (the partition calculus). He was awarded the Senior Berwick Prize of the London Mathematical Society in 1972 and was elected FRS in 1978.

For a fuller account of Rado's mathematical work see the memoir by C.A. Rogers (Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 37, 413-426).