University of Manchester
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{{Infobox_University
|name = The University of Manchester
|image = Image:University of Manchester Est1824 logo.gif
|motto = Cognitio, sapientia, hvmanitas
(Knowledge, wisdom, humanity)
|established = 2004 by the merger of the Victoria University of Manchester (established 1851) and UMIST (established 1824)
|city= Manchester
|country= United Kingdom
|campus=
|staff= 10,407
|chancellor = Anna Ford and Sir Terry Leahy
|vice_chancellor = Prof Alan Gilbert
|affiliations= Russell Group, EUA, NWUA
|students= 35,546
|undergrad= 24,867
|postgrad= 10,679
|type = Public
|website= www.manchester.ac.uk
}}
The University of Manchester in Manchester, England, was formed by the merger of the Victoria University of Manchester (commonly known as the University of Manchester before the merger) and UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) on 1 October 2004. The university was officially launched on 22 October 2004 when Her Majesty the Queen handed over the Royal Charter.
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History of the University
The combined university can trace its origins back to 1824 when the Manchester Mechanics' Institute (which later became UMIST) was founded, with Victoria University being founded as Owens College in 1851. The new university has the largest number of full time students of any university in the UK, unless the University of London is counted as a single university. It teaches more academic subjects than any other British University. The President and Vice-Chancellor of the new University is Alan Gilbert, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne. One of the stated ambitions of the newly combined university is to 'establish it by 2015 among the 25 strongest research universities in the world on commonly accepted criteria of research excellence and performance' (see 2015 Strategy).
Image:Williams and Kilburn plaque manchester by Nick Higham.jpg
The combined university counts over 20 Nobel Prize winners amongst its former staff and students. It has traditionally been particularly strong in the sciences, with the nuclear nature of the atom being discovered at Manchester, and the world's first programmable electronic computer coming into being here. Famous scientists associated with the university include Niels Bohr, Ernest Rutherford and Alan Turing. However, the university has also contributed in many other fields, and the mathematician Paul Erdős, the author Anthony Burgess, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the Pritzker Prize winning architect Norman Foster and the composer Peter Maxwell Davies all attended Manchester. Well-known figures among the current academic staff include literary critic Terry Eagleton and composer John Casken.
Image:Main Quadrangle University of Manchester by Nick Higham.jpg
Origins
The University's history is closely linked to Manchester's emergence as the world's first industrial city. John Dalton together with Manchester businessmen and industrialists established the Mechanics' Institute in 1824 to ensure that workers could learn the basic principles of science. Similarly, John Owens, a Manchester textile merchant, left a bequest of £96,942 in 1851 for the purpose of founding a college for the education of males on non-sectarian lines. Owens College was established and granted a Royal Charter in 1880 to become England's first civic university.
By 1905 the two institutions were a large and active force in the area, with the Mechanics' Institute, the forerunner of the modern UMIST, forming a Faculty of Technology and working alongside the Victoria University of Manchester. This relationship worked to the advantage of all, not least the many students who received a first class education and the employers who benefitted from the knowledge and skills imparted by the two institutions.
Present
Manchester has the largest income of all UK universities, standing at £514 million as of 2004[1]. In addition, the University has embarked on the largest programme of capital investment ever seen in British higher education with a £350 million plan to deliver eight new buildings and 15 major refurbishment projects by 2010.
Major Projects
- £60m Flagship Student Services and Nursing building
- £10m Functional Biology Building
- £33m Life Sciences and Medical and Human Sciences Building
- £56m Astronomy, Maths, Physics and Photon Science Building
- £50m Life Sciences Research Building
- £13m Chemistry Building
- £37m Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre
- £31m Humanities Building
- £17m John Rylands University Library, Deansgate
- £18m Re-location of School of Pharmacy
Top Ten UK Universities by Research Income (2003/04)
- The University of Cambridge £254.2m
- The University of Oxford £248.7m
- Imperial College £241.6m
- University College London £239.2m
- The University of Manchester £173.7m
- The University of Edinburgh £142.2m
- King's College London £140m
- The University of Southampton £111.3m
- The University of Leeds £107.7m
- The University of Sheffield £105m
Despite its size The University of Manchester is divided into only four faculties, each sub-divided into schools
- Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences consisting of the Schools of Medicine; Dentistry; Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work; Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences; and Psychological Sciences .
- Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences consisting of the Schools of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science; Chemistry; Computer Science; Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Science; Physics and Astronomy; Electrical & Electronic Engineering; Materials; Mathematics; and Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering .
- Faculty of Humanities includes the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures (a rather catchall title incorporating Archaeology; Art History; Classics and Ancient History; Drama; English and American Studies; History; Music; and Religions and Theology). The other Schools are Education; Environment and Development; Informatics (formed from the UMIST Department of Computation); Languages, Linguistics and Cultures; Law; Social Sciences and the Manchester Business School.
- Faculty of Life Sciences unusually consisting of a single school.
Famous alumni
Physics
- Joseph John (J. J.) Thomson. Studied and researched 1871–1876 (entered at age 14). Left and discovered the electron; awarded Nobel prize in 1906.
- John Henry Poynting. Student 1867–1872 (one of the very first students in the new Physical Laboratories). Lecturer 1876–1879. Left to become Professor at Mason College (which became Birmingham University). He wrote on electrical phenomena and radiation and is best known for Poynting's vector. In 1891 he determined the mean density of the Earth and made a determination of the gravitational constant in 1893. The Poynting-Robertson effect was related to the theory of relativity.
- Charles Thomson Rees (C. T. R.) Wilson. Student 1884–1887. Invented the expansion cloud chamber and was awarded Nobel prize in 1927.
- Ernest Rutherford. Langworthy Professor of Physics 1907–1919. Awarded Nobel prize in 1908, for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements and the chemistry of radioactive substances. He was the first man to split the atom.
- James Chadwick. Student (BSc & MSc) and Researcher 1908–1913 (under Rutherford). Discovered neutron and awarded Nobel prize 1935.
- Hans Geiger, Researcher 1906–1914. Did the original "Rutherford scattering" experiment with Marsden (also the Geiger-Marsden experiment). Devised the famous Geiger ionization counter.
- Sir Ernest Marsden was born in Lancashire in 1888. He won scholarships to attend grammar school and gain entry to Manchester University. It was here he met Rutherford in his honours year. Rutherford suggested a project to investigate the backwards scattering of alpha particles from a metal foil. He did this in conjunction with Hans Geiger (of Geiger counter fame), and it proved to be the key experiment in the demise of the Plum pudding model of the atom leading directly to Rutherford's nuclear atom. Rutherford also recommended Marsden for the position of physics professor at what is now Victoria University in Wellington.
- Niels Bohr. Research Staff and Schuster Reader 1911–1916. Worked on structure of atom and first theory of quantum mechanics. Awarded Nobel prize in 1922.
- William Lawrence Bragg. Director (Langworthy Professor of Physics) 1919–1937. Won a Nobel prize for X-ray crystallography in 1915, along with his father, William Henry Bragg. Their work led to the first discoveries of DNA and protein structures, which were made by Watson/Crick/Wilkins/Rosalin Franklin (DNA) and Kendrew/Perutz (protein) in Bragg's research group in Cambridge.
- Nevill Francis Mott. Lecturer 1929–1930. Awarded Nobel prize in 1977, for his fundamental theoretical investigations of the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems.
- Hans Bethe. Research staff and Temporary Lecturer 1932. Awarded Nobel prize in 1967, for his contributions to the theory of nuclear reactions, especially his discoveries concerning the energy production in stars.
- Douglas Hartree. Professor 1929–1946. Built and operated a differential analyser (a famous mechanical calculator) to evaluate the wave functions of multi-electron atoms.
- Patrick M. Blackett 1937–1953. Director and Langworthy Professor of physics. Awarded Nobel prize for developing cloud chamber and confirming/discovering positron in 1948.
- George D Rochester discovered strange particles in 1947 with Clifford C Butler. C C Butler co-discovered strange particles in 1947. Went on to be head of department at Imperial College and then VC at Loughborough.
- Sir Arnold Wolfendale, BSc 1948 and PhD 1954 in cosmic rays. Lecturer 1953–1956. 14th Astronomer Royal.
- Sir Arthur Eddington. Graduated in 1902 and became a lecturer in 1905. Founder of modern Astronomy. He made important contributions to the general theory of relativity and led an expedition team to validate it.
- Sir Bernard Lovell, Professor (1951–1990) and creator of the giant radio-telescope (the first large radio-telescope in the world with a diameter of 218 feet) at Jodrell Bank and pioneered the field of radio astronomy.
- Sir Arthur Schuster, Langworthy Professor of Physics (1888–1907), who made many contributions to optics and astronomy. Schuster's interests were wide-ranging: terrestrial magnetism, optics, solar physics, and the mathematical theory of periodicities. He introduced meteorology as a subject studied in British universities.
- Henry Moseley, who identified atomic number as the nuclear charges. He studied under Rutherford and brilliantly developed the application of X-ray spectra to study atomic structure; his discoveries resulted in a more accurate positioning of elements in the Periodic Table by closer determination of atomic numbers . Moseley was nominated for the 1915 Nobel Prize but was unfortunately killed in action in August 1915 and could not receive the prize.
- George de Hevesy, Research Staff 1910–1913, who won the Nobel prize in 1943 for his work on the use of isotopes as tracers in the study of chemical processes.
- Sir John Douglas Cockcroft, studied mathematics under Horace Lamb in 1914–1915, and received BSc and MSc in Electrical Engineering at the Tech (UMIST), won the Nobel prize in physics in 1951 for his pioneering work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles. Chancellor of UMIST. and Director of BAERE ( Manhattan Project Hall of fame ).
- Sir John Lennard-Jones, entered Manchester University where he changed his subject to mathematics in 1912. After First World War service in the Royal Flying Corps, he returned to Manchester as Lecturer in Mathematics, 1919–1922. Founder of modern theoretical chemistry. Lennard-Jones potential and LJ fluid are named after him.
Physiology and Medicine
- Archibald Vivian Hill, Brackenburg Professor of Physiology, 1920–1923. won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1922 for his discovery relating to the production of heat in the muscle.
Chemistry
- Arthur Harden (awarded Nobel prize in 1929), for investigations on the fermentation of sugar and fermentative enzymes.
- Walter Howarth (awarded Nobel prize in 1937), for his investigations on carbohydrates and vitamin C.
- Robert Robinson (awarded Nobel prize in 1947), for his investigations on plant products of biological importance, especially the alkaloids.
- Alexander Todd (awarded Nobel prize in 1957), for his work on nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes.
- Melvin Calvin (awarded Nobel prize in 1961), for his research on the carbon dioxide assimilation in plants.
- John Charles Polanyi (awarded Nobel prize in 1986), for his contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes.
- Michael Smith (awarded Nobel prize in 1993), for his fundamental contributions to the establishment of oligonucleiotide-based, site-directed mutagenesis and its development for protein studies.
Economics
- Joseph E. Stiglitz (awarded Nobel prize in 2001), for his analyses of markets with asymmetric information. Former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank, he is famous for his critical view of globalization and international institutions like the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank. Currently, Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz teaches at Columbia University and heads the Brooks World Poverty Institute (BWPI) at the University of Manchester.
- Sir Arthur Lewis (awarded Nobel prize in 1979), for his pioneering research into economic development research with particular consideration of the problems of developing countries.
- John Hicks (awarded Nobel prize in 1974), for his pioneering contributions to general economic equilibrium theory and welfare theory.
Computer science and mathematics
- Alan Turing, founder of computer science and AI. ACM Turing award is named after him.
- Tom Kilburn and Freddie Williams invented the Williams-Kilburn Tube and the first modern electronic computer in the world, the Manchester Mark 1.
- Paul Erdős was one of the most prolific mathematicians of the 20th century. The Euler of our time, he posed and solved many problems in number theory and other areas. He was a founder of the field of extremal combinatorics, of major importance in theoretical computer science. He wrote 1,500 papers. In his early career, he held a post-doctoral fellowship at Manchester University and subsequently became an itinerant mathematician. Awarded the Cole Prize of the AMS.
- James Lighthill was one of the most influential applied mathematicians of the 20th century. He made important contributions to the modern developments in theoretical aerodynamics and aeroacoustics (Lighthill's eighth power law) and was one of the founding fathers of the field of biofluiddynamics. He is also founder of IMA.
- Osborne Reynolds is famous for his work in fluid mechanics. In 1886 he formulated a theory of lubrication and three years later he developed the standard mathematical framework used in the study of turbulence. The Reynolds number used in modelling fluid flow is named after him (his students include J. J. Thomson, who discovered the electron).
- Ludwig Wittgenstein who is best known for his work in philosophy undertook aeronautical research in Manchester. Needing to understand more mathematics for his research he began a study which soon involved him in the foundations of mathematics.
- Louis Mordell was a pure mathematician who made important contributions in number theory.
- Sydney Goldstein was one of the most influential theoretical fluid mechanicians in this century. He is best known for his work in boundary layer theory where the Goldstein singularity is named after him.
- Lewis Fry Richardson was a scientist who was the first to apply mathematics, in particular the method of finite differences, to predicting the weather (the father of CFD). He made contributions to calculus and to the theory of diffusion, in particular eddy-diffusion in the atmosphere. The Richardson number, a fundamental quantity involving gradients of temperature and wind velocity, is named after him.
- Sir Horace Lamb was one of the six professors appointed when Manchester University received its Royal Charter (his chair was in Mathematics, and Osborne Reynolds was given the Chair in Engineering). He made many important contributions to applied mathematics, including the areas of acoustics and fluid dynamics. His book Hydrodynamics (first published in 1895) was for many years the standard text on the subject and is still essential reading for researchers. Lamb's main field of research was solid mechanics, and he made careful studies of the vibrations of spherical bodies which aided understanding in seismology. Research on waves in layered media led to the discovery of Lamb waves.
- Bernhard Neumann spent more than a decade in Manchester. He is one of the leading figures in group theory.
- Max Newman made important contributions to combinatorial topology, Boolean algebras and mathematical logic. He directed the now-famous Colossus cryptanalysis program in WWII.
- John Littlewood is famous for his work on the theory of series, the Riemann zeta function, inequalities and the theory of functions. He held a lectureship at the University of Manchester from 1907 to 1910.
- Harold Davenport worked in Manchester as a contemporary of Erdős and Mordell.
- Kurt Mahler spent several periods of his academic life at Manchester. Major themes of his work were p-adic numbers, p-adic diophantine approximation, geometry of numbers and Mahler measures.
- Frank Adams was a leading figure in algebraic topology and homotopy theory. He developed methods which led to important advances in calculating the homotopy groups of spheres (a problem which is still unsolved), including the invention of the Adams operations.
- Brian Hartley is best known for his work in group theory. His book Rings, Modules and Linear Algebra (written with T. O. Hawkes) is a widely used undergraduate text.
- Sydney Chapman, developed important theory on thermal diffusion in highly ionized gases, magnetic storms, instability along magnetic neutral lines, noctilucent clouds and the fundamentals of gas dynamics.
- Edward Milne, a leading figure in the study of radiative equilibrium, the structure of stellar atmospheres, theory of relativity and the interior structure of stars. President of London Maths Society.
- M. S. Bartlett, professor of mathematical statistics from 1947 to 1960 made important contributions to the analysis of data with spatial and temporal patterns. He is also known for his work in the theory of statistical inference and in multivariate analysis.
Campus and Facilities
The Main Campus of the University consists of two parts. The North Campus, the former UMIST campus, is near Sackville Street, and the South Campus, which was mainly the campus of the Victoria University of Manchester, in the vicinity of Oxford Road. In addition there are a number of further university buildings located throughout the city, and throughout the further region (such as Jodrell Bank Observatory and Tabley House, a stately home, both of which are in the nearby county of Cheshire).
John Rylands University Library
The University's library, the John Rylands University Library is the largest non-legal deposit library in the UK, and the country's third-largest academic library after those of Oxford and Cambridge.
Of particular note is the John Rylands Library itself, founded in memory of John Rylands by his wife Enriqueta Augustina Rylands, situated in a very fine Victorian Gothic building. This site, on Deansgate in Manchester city centre houses an important collection of historic books and manuscripts, including the oldest extant New Testament document, Rylands Library Papyrus P52, the so-called St John's fragment. The Deansgate site is currently closed for major improvements and renovations, including the construction of the pitched roof originally intended.
Jodrell Bank
Image:Jodrell Bank Observatory.Lovell telescope.jpg
Jodrell Bank is the University's observatory, situated about ten miles west of Macclesfield. It has played an important role in the research of quasars and pulsars. In 1979, scientists at Jodrell Bank announced the first detection of a gravitational lens, which confirmed Einstein's theory of General Relativity.
Whitworth Art Gallery
Whitworth Art Gallery is home to internationally famous collections of British watercolours, textiles and wallpapers, as well as a range of modern and historic prints, drawings, paintings and sculpture. A programme of temporary exhibitions runs throughout the year, with the Mezzanine Court serving as a venue for showing sculpture.
Old Quadrangle
The buildings around the old quadrangle date from the time of Owens College, and were designed in a Gothic style by Alfred Waterhouse (and his son Paul Waterhouse). Today, the museum continues to occupy one side (including the tower) and the grand setting of Whitworth Hall is used for the conferment of degrees. The old Christie Library now houses Christie's Bistro, and the remainder of the buildings are used by administrative departments.
Manchester Museum
Manchester Museum provides access to about six million items from every continent of the globe. Butterflies and carvings from India; birds and bark-cloth from the Pacific; live frogs and ancient pottery from America; fossils and native art from Australia; mammals and ancient Egyptian craftsmanship from Africa; plants, coins and minerals from Europe; art from past civilisations of the Mediterranean; and beetles, armour and archery from Asia. The museum recently acquired a cast of a fossilised Tyrannosaurus rex called "Stan", which was unveiled on 4 November 2004.
Contact Theatre
The University's Contact Theatre stages largely modern live performance and participatory work for younger audiences. It is housed in an interesting fortress-style building on the Oxford Road, with a unique energy-efficient system, using its high towers. The colourful and curvaceous interior houses three performance spaces, the Deluxe lounge bar and Hot Air, a reactive public artwork in the foyer space.
Clubs and societies
There are many different clubs and societies operating within the University of Manchester. Common areas include sports, hobbies, politics and religion. The University of Manchester website and wikispectus details the various societies in far greater depth than is present below. There are several fairs during the freshers period in which various clubs and societies will promote themselves.
Sports societies vary widely in their level and scope. Many of the more popular sports will have several university teams as well as departmental teams which may be placed in a league against other teams from different departments/halls of residence within the university. Common teams include: Hockey, Rugby, Football, Basketball, Netball and Cricket. The aquatics centre, the swimming pool used for the Manchester Commonwealth Games is also present near to the campus.
Hobbies has been used as an umbrella term to cover the huge range of other clubs and societies on offer. These vary hugely between areas like Languages, Nationalities, Wargames, Artsbased e.g. Anime and many more. If a particular society does not exist there is usually a mechanism by which it can be created.
There is a wide range of religious based societies and places of worship within the university of Manchester. A religions fair is also held, where in addition to the freshers fair information is distributed about the different societies. There are large Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Bahá'í socities which hold regular events and meetings. Either within or near to the university are several different places of worship.
The University of Manchester Students Union
The University of Manchester Students' Union represents many students in Manchester, including those from the former UMIST. There are now two Union buildings - the Steve Biko building inherited from the Victoria University of Manchester, and the Barnes Wallis building from UMIST. Manchester Academy, its own music venue, hosts top quality bands most nights of the week. The student newspaper is called Student Direct. The radio station, Fuse FM, broadcasts twice-yearly and also over the internet.
NHS Hospitals
The University of Manchester's medical school is the largest in Europe with over 500 medical students being trained in each year. Approximately 80 students who have completed pre-clinical training at the Bute Medical School (University of St Andrews) join the third year of the undergraduate medical programme each year.
The university's Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences has strong links with a large number of NHS hospitals in the north west of England and maintains presences in its four base hospitals. The base hospitals are Manchester Royal Infirmary (located at one end of the main university campus on Oxford Road) and Wythenshawe Hospitals, Salford's Hope Hospital, the Royal Preston Hospital and the University Hospital of North Staffordshire. All are used as hospital's for clinical medical training for doctors and nurses.
In 2002, the University collaborated with Keele University in the Keele University Medical School. Approximately 40 students who had completed pre-clinical studies at Manchester (or at the Bute Medical School, University of St Andrews) went to the University Hospital of North Staffordshire in Stoke-on-Trent, where they undertook the Manchester University medical curriculum, provided by staff from the then newly-established Keele University Medical School.
Residential Campuses
The North Campus lies on the previous UMIST Campus, comprising of 5 halls of residence central to the Sackville Street building (Weston, Lambert, Fairfield, Chandos, Wright Robinson), and several other halls within a 5-15 minute walk away, such as the Grovensor group of halls and Whitworth Park.
The Fallowfield Campus, situated 2 miles south of the main university campus (the South Campus), is the largest of the university's residential campuses. The Owens Park tower lies at the centre of it, with Oak House being the other main hall of residence. Richmond Park is a relatively recent addition to the campus.
Victoria Park Campus, situated between Fallowfield and the South Campus, just off Rusholme, comprises several houses of Residence. Among these are St. Anselm with Canterbury Court, Dalton Ellis, Hulme Hall (including Burkhardt House), St Gabriel's and Opal Gardens.
External links
- The University of Manchester
- University of Manchester Act 2004
- UMSU - the student union
- Student Direct - the student union newspaper
- Manchester Academy
- Wikispectus - a wiki prospectus for the University of Manchester
- Manchester Medical Society
- UMCU - Christian Union
- The Islamic Society
- Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama
- The Manchester Museum
Template:Worldwide Universities Networkar:جامعة مانشيستر de:University of Manchester fr:Université de Manchester ja:マンチェスター大学