mathematics

Margaret Hayman

Margaret Hayman is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Margaret Hayman rather than just read about it. In short: Margaret Hayman (1923 – 26 July 1994, born Margaret Riley Crann) was a British mathematics educator who co-founded the British Mathematical Olympiad, wrote mathematics textbooks, and became president of the Mathematical Association. Life Margaret Riley Crann was born on 7 August 1923 in New Earswick in North Yorkshire, where her father Thomas Crann was a research chemist and her mother a teacher; she grew up as a Qu…

Key takeaways

Margaret Hayman belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Margaret Hayman to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Margaret Hayman from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Margaret Hayman (1923 – 26 July 1994, born Margaret Riley Crann) was a British mathematics educator who co-founded the British Mathematical Olympiad, wrote mathematics textbooks, and became president of the Mathematical Association.

Life Margaret Riley Crann was born on 7 August 1923 in New Earswick in North Yorkshire, where her father Thomas Crann was a research chemist and her mother a teacher; she grew up as a Quaker. After studying at the Mill Mount School in York, she read mathematics and then geography in Newnham College, Cambridge, and earned a master's degree from the University of Cambridge, beginning in 1941 and finishing in 1944. She became a social worker in Birmingham for a year before taking a position as a mathematics teacher at Putney High School, a girls' school in London where she eventually became head of mathematics. In 1947, she married mathematician Walter Hayman. He writes that they met at the Jesus Lane Friends Meeting House in Cambridge, in her third and his first year at Cambridge, and that they fell in love after she hit him with a celery stick for making a pun. Beyond her professional interests, she was also an amateur violinist and activist, joining the Aldermaston Marches for CND, fundraising for various causes and, in her later years, joining the board of North Yorkshire MIND. Margaret and Walter had three daughters: Daphne, Carolyn and Sheila. She retired from Putney High School in 1985, and returned with her husband to Yorkshire. She died on 26 July 1994.

Contributions In 1966, Hayman and her husband founded the British Mathematical Olympiad. Hayman took an active part in the meetings of proponents of the competition, helped negotiate the role of the British Olympiad in the International Mathematical Olympiad, and fought for funding for the competition and for the good will of the Mathematical Association towards the competition. She taught master classes in mathematics teaching for the Royal Institution, and became the author of mathematical textbooks, including:

Multiple Choice Modern Mathematics (Nelson, 1969) Essential Mathematics (Macmillan 1971) She became president of the Mathematical Association for the 1974–1975 term, and a member of the council of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. Her philosophy as president of the Mathematical Association involved keeping the mathematics curriculum flexible enough to ensure that all pupils received a mathematical education fitting their individual needs.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Margaret Hayman

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Margaret Hayman claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Margaret Hayman before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Margaret Hayman ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Margaret Hayman

In research: Margaret Hayman appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Margaret Hayman in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Margaret Hayman is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1923 births, 1994 deaths, 20th-century Quakers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Margaret Hayman outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Margaret Hayman in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Margaret Hayman means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Margaret Hayman out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Margaret Hayman in simple terms?

Why does Margaret Hayman matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Margaret Hayman?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Margaret Hayman.