Renfrey Potts

The fourth child of Gilbert MacDonald Potts and Lorna Potts (née West), named after family friend and medical doctor Renfrey Gershom Burnard, Potts was educated at Rose Park Primary School and Prince Alfred College, where his father was Second Master. Potts was an outstanding lecturer who drew large audiences to his talks. In addition to mathematics, he was interested in sports and music. His sporting activities included long distance and marathon running, hockey, tennis, squash, badminton, bushwalking, and swimming. He played both the piano and the clarinet and was a volunteer disc jockey at a local radio station. He married Barbara Kidman in Oxford on 1 July 1950. They had two daughters, Linda and Rebecca. They also had four grandchildren, Frank, Zoe, Jack and Georgia. ==Summary==

• 1925 Born: 4 October 1925 Adelaide, South Australia, Australia • 1930–1936 Rose Park Primary School • 1937–1942 Prince Alfred College • 1943–1947 University of Adelaide Bachelor of Science (First class honours in mathematics) • 1948 Rhodes Scholar, Queen's College, Oxford • 1949 Barbara Kidman • 1950 Married Barbara Kidman • 2001 Centenary Medal received from the Australian Government • 2004 Inducted to the Pearcey Hall of Fame (The Pearcey Foundation) • 2005 Died: 9 August 2005 Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. ==Publications==

Most-cited publication: • {{cite journal Some others: (Ren published about 90 research papers) Books • With Robert Oliver, "Flows in Transportation Networks" • 1978 Potts, R. B., "Transport in Australia: Some Key Issues", Australian Academy of Science, Canberra, 1978, 159 pp.  Book chapters • 1990 Potts, R. B., "Wilton, John Raymond (1884–1944), Mathematician", in John Ritchie (ed.), Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 12, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1990, pp. 533–534 Journal articles • 1959 Harold Willis Milnes, Renfrey B. Potts: "Boundary Contraction Solution of Laplace's Differential Equation" J. ACM 6(2): 226–235 (1959)] Article • 1959 Robert Herman, Elliott W. Montroll, Renfrey B. Potts, and Richard W. Rohtery, "Traffic Dynamics: Analysis of Stability in Car Following", Operations Research 7, pp. 86–106 (January–February 1959) • 1959 Denos C. Gazis, Robert Herman, and Renfrey B. Potts, "Car-Following Theory of Steady-State Traffic Flow", Operations Research 7, pp. 499–505 (July–August 1959). • 1962 "The Measurement of Acceleration Noise—A Traffic Parameter", Trevor R. Jones, Renfrey B. Potts, Operations Research, Vol. 10, No. 6 (Nov. – Dec. 1962), pp. 745–763 Abstract • 1982 "Differential and Difference Equations", Renfrey B. Potts, The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 89, No. 6 (Jun. – Jul. 1982), pp. 402–407 Abstract • 1985 Potts, R. B., "Mathematics at the University of Adelaide, Part 3: 1944–1958", Australian Mathematical Society Gazette, vol. 12, no. 2, 1985, pp. 25–30. • 1988 Tamar Flash, Renfrey B. Potts: "Discrete trajectory planning". October 1988, International Journal of Robotics Research, Volume 7 Issue 5 ACM PortalAbstract • 2004 Wall, G. E., Pitman, Jane and Potts, R. B., "Eric Stephen Barnes, 1924–2000", Historical Records of Australian Science, vol. 15, no. 1, 2004, pp. 21–45. (Also available at http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/HR03013.htm and https://web.archive.org/web/20090929205257/http://www.science.org.au/academy/memoirs/barnes.htm) ==Affiliations==

• 1959 General Motors Corporation, Detroit, Michigan • 1960s–1980s P.G. Pak-Poy & Associates, Adelaide • 1988 Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel ==Awards==

• Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) 1991 • Centenary Medal 2001 ==See also==