Jillian Beardwood

Jillian Beardwood (20 December 1934 – 28 October 2019) was a British mathematician known for the Beardwood–Halton–Hammersley theorem. Published by the Cambridge Philosophical Society in a 1959 article entitled "The Shortest Path Through Many Points", the theorem provides an asymptotic formula for the length of a traveling salesperson tour of a given number of points in a unit square, both in the worst case and for random points.

Early life Beardwood was born in Norwich, England in 1934. After attending The Blyth School for Girls, she studied mathematics at St. Hugh's College, Oxford, earning first-class honours and a master's degree in 1956.

Mathematics career After university, Beardwood accepted a position at the newly formed United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), where she was one of four postgraduate students selected to study with John Hammersley, a professor at Trinity College, Oxford. In that position, Beardwood gained access to the Ferranti Mercury computer at the UKAEA's research facility at Harwell, as well as to the ILLIAC II computer at the University of Illinois. She was later promoted to Senior Scientific Officer at the UKAEA, where she specialised in Monte Carlo methods and algorithms for modeling complex geometrical situations.

Later career After leaving the UKAEA in 1968, Beardwood worked in transport modeling for the UK government's Road Research Laboratory. In 1973, she joined the staff of the Greater London Council (GLC) where she directed the transport studies group until the GLC was dissolved in 1987. Her team helped to plan the M25 orbital motorway around London and early congestion pricing systems.

One of Beardwood's most cited studies for the GLC, "Roads Generate Traffic", found that highway construction encourages people to drive and leads to increased congestion. "All that increases in road capacity do is allow people to abandon public transport in favour of the car". Beardwood's research accurately predicted that the M25 would quickly exceed its maximum capacity. It has been cited in support of policies encouraging the use of bicycles and other alternatives to cars. Similarly, her later work included a study which predicted that the proposed East London River Crossing would quickly become congested if there were no significant routes available to provide relief.