Mathematician:Alexander Craig Aitken

Mathematician
New Zealander mathematician known for his work in statistics, algebra and numerical analysis.

Worked at Bletchley Park during World War II on the Enigma code.

Famously memorised the decimal expansion of the reciprocal of $97$ by heart.

Nationality
New Zealander

History

 * Born: 1 April 1895 in Dunedin, New Zealand
 * 1912: Head Boy at Otago Boys' High School in Dunedin
 * 1913: Won scholarship to Otago University
 * 1915: Enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and served in Gallipoli, Egypt, and France
 * 1916: Wounded at Battle of the Somme
 * 1817: Sent back to New Zealand
 * 1919: Student (by correspondence) with
 * 1920: Graduated with First Class Honours in French and Latin but only Second Class Honours in mathematics
 * 1920: Married Mary Winifred Betts
 * 1923: Studied for Ph.D. at Edinburgh University
 * 1925: Appointed to Edinburgh University
 * 1925: Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
 * 1926: Awarded a D.Sc. for thesis
 * 1936: Became a Reader in Statistics
 * 1936: Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
 * 1946: Appointed to Whittaker's Chair
 * 1964: Elected to the Royal Society of Literature
 * Died: 3 November 1967 in Edinburgh, Scotland

Publications

 * 1945: An Introduction to the Theory of Canonical Matrices (with )
 * 1962: The Case against Decimalisation


 * Editor of the series of University Mathematics Texts with.


 * Contributor towards the series:
 * 1939: Determinants and matrices
 * 1939: Statistical Mathematics

Also known as
Known semi-formally as Alex Aitken.