Mathematician:Mathematicians/Sorted By Nation/South Africa

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

South Africa

Stanley Skewes $($$\text {1899}$ – $\text {1988}$$)$

South African mathematician, best known for his discovery of the Skewes' number in $1933$.

One of John Edensor Littlewood's students at Cambridge University.
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Seymour Aubrey Papert $($$\text {1928}$ – $\text {2016}$$)$

South African-born American mathematician, computer scientist and educator

One of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, and of the constructionist movement in education.

Co-inventor, with Wally Feurzeig and Cynthia Solomon, of the Logo programming language.
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