Aitken

Alexander Craig Aitken

Born: 1 April 1895 in Dunedin, New Zealand
Died: 3 Nov 1967 in Edinburgh, Scotland

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Aitken's university career was interrupted by World War I. He served in Gallipoli, Egypt and France being wounded at the battle of the Somme. He graduated in 1920 having First Class Honours in French and Latin but only Second Class in mathematics in which he had no proper instruction.

Aitken came to Scotland in 1923 and studied for a Ph.D. at Edinburgh under Whittaker. In 1925 he was appointed to Edinburgh where he spent the rest of his life. He was appointed to Whittaker's chair in 1946.

Aitken had an incredible memory (he knew pi to 2000 places) and could instantly multiply, divide and take roots of large numbers. His mathematical work was in statistics, numerical analysis and algebra.

References elsewhere in this archive:

Tell me about Aitken's work on matrices and determinants

References:

  1. Obituary, A C Aitken, DSc, FRS, Proc. Edinburgh Math. Soc. 16 (1968), 151-176.
  2. Obituary, Yearbook of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Session 1967-68 (1969), 5-8.
  3. J M Whittaker and M S Bartlett, Alexander Craig Aitken, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of London 14 (1968), 1-14. 
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