Renfrey Burnard PottsAO was an Australian mathematician and is notable for the Potts model and his achievements in: operations research, especially networks; transportation science, car-following and road traffic; Ising-type models in mathematical physics; difference equations; and robotics. He was interested in computing from the early days of the computing revolution and oversaw the first computer purchases at the University of Adelaide.
Personal
The fourth child of Gilbert MacDonald Potts and Lorna Potts, 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.
Foundation President of the South Australian Computer Society. He is recognised as the founder of the Australian Computer Society, and was elected a Fellow of that society.
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., , in John Ritchie, Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 12, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1990, pp. 533–534
Journal articles
1959 Harold Willis Milnes, Renfrey B. Potts: J. ACM 6: 226–235 ]
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
1959 Denos C. Gazis, Robert Herman, and Renfrey B. Potts, "Car-Following Theory of Steady-State Traffic Flow", Operations Research 7, pp. 499–505.
1962 "The Measurement of Acceleration Noise—A Traffic Parameter", Trevor R. Jones, Renfrey B. Potts, Operations Research, Vol. 10, No. 6, pp. 745–763
1982 "Differential and Difference Equations", Renfrey B. Potts, The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 89, No. 6, pp. 402–407
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: . October 1988, International Journal of Robotics Research, Volume 7 Issue 5
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.
