Douglas Sutherland Bridges

Current Curriculum Vitae [PDF, 65 KB]

Personal Details

B.Sc.(Hons) (Edinburgh), {M.Sc.(Newcastle), Dip.Ed(Edinburgh)
D.Phil.(Oxford), D.Sc.(Oxford)
Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand
Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh

Research Interests

  • Foundations of mathematics: in particular, constructive foundations of analysis (real and functional) and topology (the axiomatic theory of apartness), and ring theory.
  • Constructive reverse mathematics: classifying constructive proofs by the principles they require, and nonconstructive proofs by the nonconstructive principles they depend on.
  • Computability and abstract complexity theory.
  • Mathematical economics: the numerical representation of preference relations; demand functions; equilibrium theory.
  • Quantum logic and operator-theoretic foundations of physics.

140+ refereed papers in journals and conference proceedings.

7 books, including

Constructive Analysis (with Errett Bishop) Grundlehren der math. Wissenschaften 279, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg–Berlin–New York, 1985.
Varieties of Constructive Mathematics (with Fred Richman) London Math. Soc. Lecture Notes 97, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987.
Techniques of Constructive Mathematics (with Luminita Vīta, Universitext, Springer New York, 2006.

Book in preparation:

Apartness Spaces (with Luminita Vīta, graduate monograph.

Career Summary

1951–63 Pupil at George Watson's College, Edinburgh
1963–67 Student at the University of Edinburgh; graduated B.Sc. (first class honours) in Mathematics.
1967–68 Student at the University of Newcastle, supervised by John Ringrose; graduated in 1969 with M.Sc. by thesis (Algebraic and spatial *-isomorphisms between von Neumann algebras)
1969 Student at University of Edinburgh; graduated with Dip. Ed.
1969–1971 Mathematics master and House Tutor at Clifton College, Bristol
1972–74 Doctoral student at Oxford University (Wolfson College), supervised by Robin Gandy and Michael Dummett. Graduated in February 1975 with D.Phil. (Constructive mathematics–-its set theory and practice).
1975–89 Lecturer (1975–79), Senior Lecturer (1979–82), then Professor (1982–89) of Mathematics, University College at Buckingham (later the University of Buckingham, the UK's only Royal-chartered private university).
1989–98 Professor of Mathematics, and Chairman of the Department of Mathematics & Statistics (1989–95), University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.
1999– Professor of Pure Mathematics, and Head of Department of Mathematics & Statistics (1999–92), University of Canterbury.

Other Interests and Activities

Classical music (especially Schubert, Beethoven, and Bach): singing, listening.
Football (lifelong supporter of Heart of Midlothian FC; former coach at Hillcrest High School, and referee), cricket (former coach at Hillcrest HS), cycling.
Foreign languages: working knowledge of German, French, Italian, Spanish.
Art–house cinema
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