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7/14/2015 Alexander Aitken Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Alexander Aitken From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Alexander Craig "Alec" Aitken FRSNZ FRSE FRS[2] (1895–1967) was one of New Zealand's Alexander Aitken greatest mathematicians.[3][4][5][6][7] Born Alexander Craig Aitken 1 April 1895 Dunedin Contents Died 3 November 1967 (aged 72) Edinburgh 1 Life and work Alma mater University of Edinburgh 2 Awards and honours University of Otago 3 Personal life 4 References Thesis Smoothing of Data 4.1 Further reading Doctoral advisor E. T. Whittaker[1] Doctoral students Hamish Anderson David Bailey Life and work Narbheshanker Bhatt Alexander Buchan Aitken was born on 1 April 1895 in Dunedin, the Nora Calderwood eldest of the 7 children of William Aitken and Elizabeth Towers. He was educated at Otago Boys' James Campbell High School in Dunedin (1908–13) and won the Edwin Dalziel Thomas Baker Calculus Scholarship in his last year at Henry Daniels school. He saw active service during World War I Henri Gonin with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, at Florence Harding Gallipoli, in Egypt, and at the Western Front. He was Robert Hiorns wounded at the Somme. Alastair Howie David Hunter Aitken graduated MA from the University of Otago in 1920, then worked as a schoolmaster at Otago Boys' Walter Kibble High School from 1920–3. Dip Lal Donald Livingstone Aitken studied for a PhD at the University of Ragy Makar Edinburgh, in Scotland, where his dissertation, John Mott "Smoothing of Data", was considered so impressive William Muir [3] that he was awarded a DSc in 1926. Aitken's impact Arthur Rayner at the University had been so great that he had been Hans Schneider elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Leonard Shenton the year before the award of his degree, upon the Harold Silverstone proposal of Sir Edmund Whittaker, Sir Charles Galton Darwin, Edward Copson and David Gibb. Aitken was Leon Solomon awarded the MakdougallBrisbane Prize for 19302, Hendrik Steyn and was very active in the affairs of the RSE, serving John Sutherland[1] as Councillor (1934–36), Secretary to Ordinary Meetings (1936–40), and VicePresident (1948–51; Known for Aitken's array 19569). He was also an active member of the Aitken's deltasquared process Edinburgh Mathematical Society and a Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries. Notable awards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Aitken 1/3 7/14/2015 Alexander Aitken Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Aitken spent his entire career at Edinburgh Fellow of the Royal Society[2] University, working as Lecturer in Actuarial Mathematics & Statistics (1925–36), Reader in Statistics (1936–46), and finally Professor of Mathematics (1946–65). During World War II he worked in Hut 6 Bletchley Park decrypting ENIGMA code.[8] Aitken was one of the best mental calculators known, and had a prodigious memory.[3] He knew the first 1000 digits of , the 96 recurring digits of 1/97, and memorised the Aeneid in high school. Unfortunately, his inability to forget the horrors he witnessed in World War I led to recurrent depression throughout his life. Through his collaboration with Herbert W. Turnbull on a book on canonical matrices (published in 1932), Aitken acquired an Erdős number of 6. Aitken was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1936[2] for his work in statistics, algebra and numerical analysis. He was an accomplished writer, being elected to the Royal Society of Literature in 1964 in response to the publication of his war memoirs. He was also an excellent musician, being described by Eric Fenby as the most accomplished amateur musician he had ever known, and was a champion athlete in his younger days. Awards and honours An annual "Aitken Prize" is awarded by the New Zealand Mathematical Society for the best student talk at their colloquium. The prize was inaugurated in 1995 at the University of Otago's Aitken Centenary Conference, a joint mathematics and statistics conference held to remember Aitken a hundred years after his birth. Personal life Aitken died on 3 November 1967, in Edinburgh. References 1. Alexander Aitken (http://www.genealogy.ams.org/id.php?id=18577) at the Mathematics Genealogy Project 2. Whittaker, J. M.; Bartlett, M. S. (1968). "Alexander Craig Aitken 18951967". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 14: 1. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1968.0001 (https://dx.doi.org/10.1098%2Frsbm.1968.0001). 3. "Alexander Aitken THE HUMAN COMPUTER" (http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/aitken.html). NZ Edge. 4. O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Alexander Aitken" (http://wwwhistory.mcs.st andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Aitken.html), MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews. 5. A. C. Aitken (1935). "On Least Squares and Linear Combinations of Observations", Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 55, 42–48. 6. A. C. Aitken and H. Silverstone (1942). "On the Estimation of Statistical Parameters", Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1942, 61, 186–194. 7. A. C. Aitken (1963). Gallipoli to the Somme: Recollections of a New Zealand infantryman. Oxford. 8. "Aitken, Alexander Craig". The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30357 (https://dx.doi.org/10.1093%2Fref%3Aodnb%2F30357). Further reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Aitken 2/3 7/14/2015 Alexander Aitken Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I. M. L. Hunter, An exceptional talent for calculative thinking, British Journal of Psychology 53 (3) (1962), 243–258. New Zealand Mathematical Society Newsletter, Number 63, April 1995 (Centerfold) (http://ifs.massey.ac.nz/mathnews/centrefolds/63/Apr1995.shtml) NZ Heroes page on Aitken (http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/aitken.html) A.C. Aitken (1895–1967) (http://www.austms.org.au/Publ/Gazette/1995/Mar95/aitken.html), P.C. Fenton, Gazette of the Australian Mathematical Society, March 1995 Alexander Aitken, Econometrics Beat: Dave Giles' Blog (http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2011/07/alexanderaitken.html) Times obituary (http://www.aam314.vzz.net/Aitken.html) Royal Society citation (http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/DServe/dserve.exe? dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqSearch=RefNo=='EC/1936/01'&ds qDb=Catalog) Aitken prize (http://www.math.waikato.ac.nz/NZMS/aitken05.html) Transcript of 1954 radio interview with Aitken and another mental calculator (http://www.mentalcalculation.com/misc/bbc1954.html) Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alexander_Aitken&oldid=660316087" Categories: 1895 births 1967 deaths People from Dunedin People educated at Otago Boys' High School University of Otago alumni Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Academics of the University of Edinburgh Fellows of the Royal Society of New Zealand Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Recipients of the Makdougall Brisbane Prize Mental calculators New Zealand people of Scottish descent New Zealand people of English descent New Zealand emigrants to the United Kingdom New Zealand mathematicians New Zealand memoirists New Zealand military personnel of World War I New Zealand statisticians Scottish mathematicians Scottish memoirists Scottish statisticians People associated with Bletchley Park This page was last modified on 1 May 2015, at 21:19. 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