Collection: May's Equation

Robert McCredie May was born on 8 January 1938, in Sydney, Australia. He spent a solitary childhood playing puzzles and problem solving games. May attended Woollahra Primary School and Sydney Boys High School (1948–1952). There he became a champion in the school debating team and was greatly influenced by several excellent teachers, especially in science.

After topping his class and dismissing potential careers in law and medicine, May decided to pursue a degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Sydney (1953). He divided his time between playing chess and snooker, and occasionally studying for chemistry, mathematics and physics exams, which he considered to be ‘interesting games’. Despite this approach he achieved incredible success, winning prizes in chemistry and physics. Contrary to advice received, he defied even more odds by successfully navigating a gruelling undergraduate combination of chemical engineering and physics in his second year. In his third year he forsook chemical engineering, simultaneously majoring in pure mathematics, applied mathematics, and physics (again despite contrary advice) and topping all three. After successfully completing his honours year in physics (1956), May decided on a career in science, and never looked back.

In a influential paper in 1976 the Australian theoretical ecologist Robert May showed that simple first order difference equations can have very complicated or even unpredictable dynamics, often cited as an archetypal example of how complex, chaotic behaviour can arise from very simple non-linear dynamical equations.