Mathematician:Mathematicians/Sorted By Nation/New Zealand

For more comprehensive information on the lives and works of mathematicians through the ages, see the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, created by John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson.

The army of those who have made at least one definite contribution to mathematics as we know it soon becomes a mob as we look back over history; 6,000 or 8,000 names press forward for some word from us to preserve them from oblivion, and once the bolder leaders have been recognised it becomes largely a matter of arbitrary, illogical legislation to judge who of the clamouring multitude shall be permitted to survive and who be condemned to be forgotten.

-- Eric Temple Bell: Men of Mathematics, 1937, Victor Gollancz, London

New Zealand

Ernest Rutherford $($$\text {1871}$ – $\text {1937}$$)$

New Zealand physicist who discovered the concept of radioactive half-life, the radioactive element radon, and differentiated and named alpha and beta radiation.
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Leslie John Comrie $($$\text {1893}$ – $\text {1950}$$)$

New Zealand mathematician and astronomer who was a pioneer in the field of mechanical computation.

Produced two editions of Barlow's Tables, making significant extensions and enhancements.

Computerised the British football pools.
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Alexander Craig Aitken $($$\text {1895}$ – $\text {1967}$$)$

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.
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Derek Frank Lawden $($$\text {1919}$ – $\text {2008}$$)$

New Zealand mathematician of English descent who worked on rocket trajectories and space flight.
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James Stuart Milne $($$\text {b. 1942}$$)$

New Zealand mathematician working in arithmetic geometry.
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Robert Ian Goldblatt $($$\text {b. 1949}$$)$

Mathematical logician from New Zealand, most famous for his work on topoi.

Author of the popular book Logics of Time and Computation.

Also the author of a graduate level textbook on hyperreal numbers which is an introduction to nonstandard analysis.
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Vaughan Frederick Randal Jones $($$\text {1952}$ – $\text {2020}$$)$

New Zealand mathematician known for his work on von Neumann algebras and knot polynomials.
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