As this year sees the centenary of the Silesian-born academic Klaus Roth’s birth, his niece Cléa Daridan shares a personal tribute. She remembers the UK’s first Fields Medalist not only for the excellence of his contribution to number theory but also for the man he was, having devoted his entire career to teaching Mathematics at Imperial College London and inspiring hundreds of students through his legacy. The Roth scholarship scheme, funded by the Department of Mathematics, was named after Klaus Friedrich Roth.
This formal recognition, among many other medals, fellowships and awards, while perfectly justified, only hints at the profound, quiet integrity that defined my aunt Melek’s husband, Klaus Roth. His genius, marked by the elegant proof on the approximation of algebraic numbers which secured him the Fields Medal in 1958 when he was 33 years old, was achieved with great modesty. This commitment was born from the austerity and resilience instilled by his childhood in Breslau, followed by his family’s flight from Nazism in 1933 when he was aged eight, and the early death of his father, only a few years after their arrival in England.
Klaus’s life, dedicated to Imperial College since 1966 and until his retirement in 1987, was punctuated and enriched by a small, cherished personal sphere that bridged his world of pure mathematics with my family’s diverse cultural background.
His personal life began to form at University College London with Harold Davenport’s support, when he met my aunt Melek Khaïry, the daughter of an Egyptian senator and pasha of Circassian descent. As stated in Roth’s obituary by his esteemed students and colleagues William Chen and Robert Vaughan, this was the very first university lecture Klaus had given, and the first university lecture Melek ever attended as she was studying psychology at University College. He was so instantly smitten that he declared to his friend Heini Halberstam, “I will marry her,” and later deemed himself “unable to be impartial” when marking her examination script, much to his colleagues’ amusement.
Their early courtship presented a charming logistical problem: my aunt’s sister, Hoda Khairy, then a violin student, often tagged along, chaperoning her sister as was the custom in those days. To counter the constant third presence, Roth brought along his best friend, Laimons Ozolins, a Latvian-born architect and a fellow pupil at St Paul’s School, as a “distraction” for Hoda. Roth eventually married Melek in 1955, while the friend took his assignment with such “great gusto” that he ended up marrying Hoda the same year. Thus, the two sisters and two close friends formalized a family connection that spanned from the gentlemen sharing the same difficulties during the war, living in the same academic world in London to spending the rest of their lives happily with both equally exiled ladies. One cannot but pause to think how transgenerational exiles and hardships may have influenced the choices and bonds between those two couples, their roots spanning from Silesia and Latvia, to the Caucasus and Egypt.
The four became inseparable and their life together became a testament to shared joy in the simple, elegant things. Their deep connection was beautifully expressed through their practice of ballroom dancing, an activity Klaus and Melek took so seriously that they practiced regularly, even fitting a dedicated ballroom in their Inverness home after their retirement! As once mentioned to William Chen: “One must never let mathematics become the highest priority in life”.
Melek’s untimely death in 2002 was a “devastating blow”, as Heini Halberstam stated, that Klaus never really recovered from. A testament to the depth of their relationship, Chen described Melek as having been “the strength behind Klaus”. In later years, Klaus Roth became increasingly concerned with the services and facilities available to old people in Inverness, and subsequently left the bulk of his estate towards improving these, stipulating that his bequests should be used to help elderly and infirm people living in the city of Inverness where he and Melek had retired. His medals and a generous financial gift went to Peterhouse College at Cambridge University, where he had studied mathematics as a young man, to support research.
Earlier on, Hoda had also bequeathed everything she had following Laimons’s death to the Royal Institute of British Architects. The fund bearing Laimons Ozolins’ name sustains doctoral research and yearly lectures, reflecting their strong belief that institutional excellence is built on the quiet support of academic talent.
Professor Klaus Roth leaves behind not only an unparalleled body of work but a legacy built on intellectual generosity and human loyalty. His true equation for success was simple: integrity multiplied by dedication, divided by absence of ego. As their niece, I strive to carry forward the value of that rigor, applying it to the strategy and measurability of social impact, always inspired by the quiet resilience Klaus, Melek, Hoda, and Laimons exemplified when overcoming the hardships they had each faced.
PhD Opportunities
The Roth Scholarship scheme is funded by the Department of Mathematics and named after Klaus Friedrich Roth. The award covers three-and-a-half years of a stipend, tuition fees, and research training costs. Home and overseas applicants are eligible. Around 15 full scholarships are offered each year.
The panel reviews applications on a rolling basis from November. Scholarship offers will be made through the end of March, with additional offers possible over the summer if applicants decline their awards. Applicants are normally informed about the scholarship award together with the offer of a place on the programme.
Visit the Department of Mathematics website to find out how to apply.