then became Provost of University College London (UCL) – a post he held until 1989. Lighthill founded the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA) in 1964, alongside Professor Sir Bryan Thwaites. In 1968, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Science) by the University of Bath. In 1972 he was invited to deliver the MacMillan Memorial Lecture to the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland. He chose the subject "Aquatic Animal Locomotion". Lighthill was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1970. In the early 1970s, partly in reaction to significant internal discord within that field, the Science Research Council (SRC), as it was then known, asked Lighthill to compile a review of academic research in Artificial Intelligence. Lighthill's report, which was published in 1973 and became known as the "Lighthill report," was highly critical of basic research in foundational areas such as robotics and language processing, and "formed the basis for the decision by the British government to end support for AI research in all but two universities", starting what is sometimes referred to as the "AI winter". In 1976, Lighthill was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences. In 1982, Lighthill and Alan B. Tayler were jointly awarded the first ever Gold Medal of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications in recognition of their "outstanding contributions to mathematics and its applications over a period of years". In 1983 Lighthill was awarded the Ludwig Prandtl Ring from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt (German Society for Aeronautics and Astronautics) for "outstanding contribution in the field of aerospace engineering". His hobby was open-water swimming. He died in the water in 1998 when the mitral valve in his heart ruptured while he was swimming round the island of Sark, a feat which he had accomplished many times before. Publications See also James Lighthill House External links Lighthill Papers at University College London References Further reading 1924 births 1998 deaths Academics of Imperial College London Academics of the Victoria University of Manchester Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge 20th-century British mathematicians Donegall Lecturers of Mathematics at Trinity College Dublin Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge Knights Bachelor Lucasian Professors of Mathematics Royal Medal winners Recipients of the Copley Medal Fluid dynamicists Members of the French Academy of Sciences Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Foreign Members of the Russian Academy