mathematics

Miles Reid

Miles Reid 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 Miles Reid rather than just read about it. In short: Miles Anthony Reid FRS (born 30 January 1948) is a mathematician who works in algebraic geometry. Education Reid studied the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge and obtained his Ph.D. in 1973 under the supervision of Peter Swinnerton-Dyer and Pierre Deligne.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Miles Anthony Reid FRS (born 30 January 1948) is a mathematician who works in algebraic geometry.

Education Reid studied the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge and obtained his Ph.D. in 1973 under the supervision of Peter Swinnerton-Dyer and Pierre Deligne.

Career Reid was a research fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge from 1973 to 1978. He became a lecturer at the University of Warwick in 1978 and was appointed professor there in 1992. He has written two well known books: Undergraduate Algebraic Geometry and Undergraduate Commutative Algebra.

Awards and honours Reid was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2002. In the same year, he participated as an Invited Speaker in the International Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing. Reid was awarded the Senior Berwick Prize in 2006 for his paper with Alessio Corti and Aleksandr Pukhlikov, "Fano 3-fold hypersurfaces", which made a big advance in the study of 3-dimensional algebraic varieties. In 2023 he was awarded the Sylvester Medal of the Royal Society.

Personal life Reid speaks Japanese and Russian and has given lectures in Japanese.

Bibliography His most famous book is

Undergraduate Algebraic Geometry, Cambridge University Press 1988 (ISBN 978-0521356626) doi:10.1017/CBO9781139163699 Other books

Undergraduate Commutative Algebra, Cambridge University Press 1995, doi:10.1017/CBO9781139172721 with Balazs Szendroi: Geometry and Topology, Cambridge University Press 2007 His most famous translation is the two volume work by Shafarevich

Basic Algebraic Geometry 1, Springer 1972 (ISBN 978-3642379550) Basic Algebraic Geometry 2, Springer 1977 (ISBN 978-3642380099) And he has also translated Matsumura's

Commutative Ring Theory, Cambridge University Press 1987, doi:10.1017/CBO9781139171762

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Miles Reid

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Miles Reid 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 Miles Reid 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 Miles Reid 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 Miles Reid

In research: Miles Reid 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 Miles Reid 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: Miles Reid is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1948 births, 20th-century English mathematicians, 21st-century English mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Miles Reid 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 Miles Reid in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Miles Reid 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 Miles Reid out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Miles Reid in simple terms?

Miles Anthony Reid FRS (born 30 January 1948) is a mathematician who works in algebraic geometry. Education Reid studied the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge and obtained his Ph.D. in 1973 under the supervision of Peter Swinnerton-Dyer and Pierre Deligne.

Why does Miles Reid 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 Miles Reid?

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 Miles Reid.