| Laurence Patrick Lee | |
| Birth Date: | 1913 |
| Birth Place: | England |
| Death Date: | 28 January 1985 |
| Death Place: | Wellington, New Zealand |
| Alma Mater: | University of Auckland |
| Field: | Geodesy |
| Workplaces: | Department of Lands and Survey, |
Laurence Patrick "Laurie" Lee (1913 – 28 January 1985) was a New Zealand mathematician, cartographer, and geodesist who was the Chief Computer for the Department of Lands and Survey and one of the foremost experts on (especially conformal) map projections.
Lee was born in England in 1913, but moved with his family to Auckland at a young age. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Auckland, he took a job in 1934 in the Department of Public Works in Whangārei, then transferred in 1936 to the Department of Lands and Survey in Aukland as a draughting cadet. Because of his mathematical talents, in 1941 he was sent to Wellington as a computer, where he remained until his retirement in 1974, serving as the Chief Computer for the department from 1964 to 1974. After retirement he continued consulting for the department.[1]
Lee had a stammer since childhood. In 1950, after reading about research psychologist William Kerr of St Helier, who claimed to have discovered a cure, Lee took a leave of absence from the Department of Lands and Survey and worked as an engineer's steward in return for passage to England on the Trojan Star. After just 18 minutes of Kerr's instruction, Lee could state the date and time without stammering, and after staying with Kerr for two weeks he considered himself effectively cured, with only a slight occasional stammer remaining.[2]
Lee was a lifelong bachelor.
At the Department of Lands and Survey, Lee was involved with completing the First Order Geodetic Triangulation of New Zealand, and establishing the Geodetic Datum 1949; the change to metric units; and computations for the latitude and longitude program of the International Geophysical Year, 1957–1959.
Lee was a specialist in map projections – especially conformal projections, which preserve angles and local shapes – and wrote many papers on the subject. Notably, he developed improved methods for calculating the transverse Mercator projection, developed a conformal projection of the Pacific Ocean minimising scale errors, and computed new conformal polyhedral map projections using elliptic functions. His 1976 monograph Conformal Projections Based on Elliptic Functions is still a definitive survey. His 1944 proposal for classifying map projections has been widely adopted and built upon.
Lee joined New Zealand's Royal Astronomical Society in 1948 and was Director of the Society's Computing Section from 1954 to 1972. From 1974 to 1977 he was an editor for the Society's quarterly journal, Southern Stars. He was a founding member of the New Zealand Institute of Draughtsmen and edited its journal from 1947 to 1950, a founding member of the New Zealand Cartographic Society, and was made an honorary member of the New Zealand Institute of Surveyors in 1971.