Dame Mary Lucy Cartwright DBE (December 17, 1900 – April 3, 1998) was a leading 20th-century British mathematician. Events 546 - Gothic War (535–554: The Ostrogoths of King Totila Year 1900 ( MCM) was an exceptional Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar Events 1043 - Edward the Confessor is crowned King of England. Year 1998 ( MCMXCVIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar) The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and research is the field of Mathematics. She was born in Aynho, Northamptonshire where her father was the vicar and died in Cambridge, England. Aynho (formerly spelt Aynhoe) is a village in South Northamptonshire, England. Northamptonshire (or archaically the County of Northampton; abbreviated Northants The city of Cambridge (ˈkeɪmbrɪdʒ is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland
In October 1919 she entered St Hugh's College, Oxford to study mathematics, one of only five women at that university studying the subject. Year 1919 ( MCMXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common St Hugh's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford, England, located on St Margaret's Road, North Oxford The University of Oxford (informally "Oxford University" or simply "Oxford" located in the city of Oxford, Oxfordshire, England is the She graduated from Oxford in 1923 with a first class degree in Final Honours. Year 1923 ( MCMXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.
She then taught at Alice Ottley School in Worcester and Wycombe Abbey School in Buckinghamshire before returning to Oxford in 1928 to read for her D. See Royal Grammar School for the other schools with the name RGS Worcester (ˈwʊstə is a city and County town of Worcestershire, in the West Midlands of England. Wycombe Abbey is one of the most famous independent girls' schools in Britain Buckinghamshire (abbreviated Bucks) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. Year 1928 ( MCMXXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Phil.
She was supervised by G. H. Hardy in her doctoral studies. Godfrey Harold Hardy FRS ( February 7, 1877 Cranleigh, Surrey, England &ndash December 1, 1947 During the academic year 1928–29 Hardy was at Princeton, so it was E. C. Titchmarsh who took over the duties as a supervisor. Edward Charles ("Ted" Titchmarsh (born 1 June 1899 in Newbury died 18 January, 1963 at Oxford) was a leading Her thesis on zeros of entire functions was examined by J. E. Littlewood whom she met for the first time as an external examiner in her oral examination for the D. In Complex analysis, an entire function, also called an integral function is a complex-valued function that is holomorphic everywhere on the John Edensor Littlewood ( 9 June 1885 &ndash 6 September 1977) was a British Mathematician, best known for his long collaboration Phil. She would later become a major collaborator with Littlewood, over many years.
In 1930 Cartwright was awarded a Yarrow Research Fellowship and she went to Girton College, Cambridge, to continue working on the topic of her doctoral thesis. Year 1930 ( MCMXXX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Girton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The University of Cambridge (often Cambridge University) located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the Attending Littlewood's lectures, she solved one of the open problems which he posed. Her theorem, now known as Cartwright's theorem, gives an estimate for the maximum modulus of an analytic function that takes the same value no more than p times in the unit disc. This article is about both real and complex analytic functions In Mathematics, the open unit disk around P (where P is a given point in the plane) is the set of points whose distance from P is To prove the theorem she used a new approach, applying a technique introduced by Lars Ahlfors for conformal mappings. Lars Valerian Ahlfors ( April 18, 1907 – October 11, 1996) was a Finnish Mathematician, remembered for his work in the In Mathematics, conformal geometry is the study of the set of angle-preserving ( conformal) transformations on a Riemannian manifold or Pseudo-Riemannian
She anticipated Ivan Niven's elementary proof of the irrationality of π. Ivan Morton Niven ( October 25 1915 &ndash May 9 1999) was a Canadian - American Mathematician, specializing in Although the Mathematical constant known as &pi (pi has been studied since ancient times and so has the concept of Irrational number, it was not until the 18th Her version of the proof was published in an appendix to Sir Harold Jeffreys' book Scientific Inference. Sir Harold Jeffreys ( 22 April 1891 &ndash 18 March 1989) was a mathematician statistician geophysicist and astronomer
In 1936 she became director of studies in mathematics at Girton College, and in 1938 she began work on a new project which had a major impact on the direction of her research. Year 1936 ( MCMXXXVI) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The Radio Research Board of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research produced a memorandum regarding certain differential equations which came out of modelling radio and radar work. The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR is a name used in a number of countries They asked the London Mathematical Society if they could help find a mathematician who could work on these problems and Cartwright became interested in this memorandum. The London Mathematical Society ( LMS) is the leading mathematical society in England. The dynamics lying behind the problems were unfamiliar to Cartwright so she approached Littlewood for help with this aspect. They began to collaborate studying the equations. Littlewood wrote:
- "For something to do we went on and on at the thing with no earthly prospect of "results"; suddenly the whole vista of the dramatic fine structure of solutions stared us in the face. "
The fine structure which Littlewood describes here is today seen to be a typical instance of the butterfly effect. The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in Chaos theory. The collaboration led to important results, and these have greatly influenced the direction that the modern theory of dynamical systems has taken.
In 1947 she was elected to be a Fellow of the Royal Society and, although she was not the first woman to be elected to that Society, she was the first woman mathematician. Year 1947 ( MCMXLVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as The Royal Society, is a Learned society for science that was founded in 1660
Cartwright was appointed Mistress of Girton in 1948 then, in addition, a Reader in the Theory of Functions in Cambridge in 1959, holding this appointment until 1968.
She was the first woman:
- to receive the Sylvester Medal
- to serve on the Council of the Royal Society
- to be President of the London Mathematical Society (in 1961–62)
She also received the De Morgan Medal of the Society in 1968. The Sylvester Medal is a bronze medal awarded every three years by the Royal Society for the encouragement of mathematical research The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as The Royal Society, is a Learned society for science that was founded in 1660 The London Mathematical Society ( LMS) is the leading mathematical society in England. The De Morgan Medal is a prize for outstanding contribution to Mathematics, awarded by the London Mathematical Society (LMS In 1969 she received the distinction of being honoured by the Queen, becoming Dame Mary Cartwright, Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British Order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V.
References
Dyson, Freeman J. (2006), "Mary Cartwright" in Out of the Shadows:Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics, Nina Byers and Gary Williams, ed. ,Cambridge University Press.
External links
- CWP
- Mary Cartwright at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- O'Connor, John J. The Mathematics Genealogy Project is a web-based Database that gives an Academic genealogy based on Dissertation supervision relations & Robertson, Edmund F. , “Mary Cartwright”, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
- Times Obituary
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic