Ian Robertson Porteous (9 October 1930 – 30 January 2011) was a Scottish mathematician at the University of Liverpool and an educator on Merseyside.
Eells says "Surely this book is the product of substantial thought and care, both from the standpoints of consistent mathematical presentation and of student's pedagogical requirements."
In 1995 Ian Porteous published Clifford Algebras and the Classical Groups which was reviewed by Peter R.
[4] In praise, Law says "Porteous' presentation of the subject matter sets a standard by which others may be judged."
In the preface Porteous acknowledges the contribution of his master's degree student Tony Hampson and anticipatory work by Terry Wall.
Chillingworth[5] says it is "aimed at advanced undergraduates or beginning graduate students in mathematics..." Chillingworth notes "a peculiar feature of the book is its use of compact notation for differentiation using numerical subscripts that allow tidy presentation of calculations."
Furthermore, the reviewer notes that this mathematics has "connections to optics, kinematics and architecture as well as (more recently) geology, tomography, computer vision and face-recognition."
These applications follow from the theories of contact, umbilical points, ridges, germs, and cusps.
A second edition was published in 2001, where the author was able to report on related work by Vladimir Arnold on spherical curves.