Abstract

The contribution of the late Professor John Lighton Synge to the formulation and development of the hypercircle method in numerical analysis is described. This paper represents an attempt to render a more balanced appraisal, since Synge's contribution appears to have been somewhat undervalued by some recent reviewers. The paper begins with a brief historical introduction, followed by an outline of the hypercircle method and its more recent applications. Some comparison with its successor, the finite element method, is also made.