A Point of View: Mary, queen of maths (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

Maths genius Mary Cartwright was a modest soul and one of the early founders of chaos theory. It's time we recognised her massive contribution, says historian Lisa Jardine.

In his Mathematician's Apology, published in 1940, the great mathematician GH Hardy argued emphatically that pure mathematics is never useful. Yet at the very moment he was insisting that - specifically - "real mathematics has no effect on war", a mathematical breakthrough was being made which contributed to the wartime defence of Britain against enemy air attack.

What is more, that breakthrough laid the groundwork - unrecognised at the time - for an entire new field of science.

In January 1938, with the threat of war hanging over Europe, the British Government's Department of Scientific and Industrial Research sent a memorandum to the London Mathematical Society appealing to pure mathematicians to help them solve a problem involving a tricky type of equation. Although this was not stated in the memo, it related to top-secret developments in Radio Detection and Ranging - what was soon to become known as radar.

Engineers working on the project were having difficulty with the erratic behaviour of high-frequency radio waves. The need had arisen, the memo said, for "a more complete understanding of the actual behaviour of certain assemblages of electrical apparatus". Could any of the Mathematical Society's members help?

The request caught the attention of Dr Mary Cartwright, lecturer in mathematics at Girton College Cambridge. She was already working on similar "very objectionable-looking differential equations" (as she later described them).
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21713163

[JDPriestly]

1. Very interesting. Thanks.

[jonthebru]

2. Maybe its just me, but

I can't imagine staring at a bunch of formula type numbers in confusion and actually making some sense of them... I was the guy they invented calculators for.