Alexander Craig "Alec" Aitken (1 April 1895 – 3 November 1967) was one of New Zealand's most eminent mathematicians. In a 1935 paper he introduced the concept of

generalized least squares In statistics, generalized least squares (GLS) is a technique for estimating the unknown parameters in a linear regression model when there is a certain degree of correlation between the residuals in a regression model. In these cases, ordin ...

, along with now standard vector/matrix notation for the linear regression model. Another influential paper co-authored with his student

Harold Silverstone Harold Silverstone (1915 – 1974) was a New Zealand mathematician and statistician. Early life and education He was born on 20 January 1915 in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand. His father Mark Woolf Silverstone was a Jewish immigrant from Poland. ...

established the lower bound on the variance of an

estimator In statistics, an estimator is a rule for calculating an estimate of a given quantity based on observed data: thus the rule (the estimator), the quantity of interest (the estimand) and its result (the estimate) are distinguished. For example, the ...

, now known as Cramér–Rao bound. He was elected to the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 600 Fellows, ele ...

for his

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

memoir, ''Gallipoli to the Somme''.

Life and work

Aitken was born on 1 April 1895 in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

, the eldest of the seven children of Elizabeth Towers and William Aitken. He was of Scottish descent, his grandfather having emigrated from

Lanarkshire Lanarkshire, also called the County of Lanark ( gd, Siorrachd Lannraig; sco, Lanrikshire), is a historic county, lieutenancy area and registration county in the central Lowlands of Scotland. Lanarkshire is the most populous county in Scot ...

in 1868. His mother was from

Wolverhampton Wolverhampton () is a City status in the United Kingdom, city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 United ...

. He was educated at

Otago Boys' High School , motto_translation = "The ‘right’ learning builds a heart of oak" , type = State secondary, day and boarding , established = ; years ago , streetaddress= 2 Arthur Street , region = Dunedin , state = Otago , zipcod ...

in Dunedin (1908–13) where he was school dux and won the Thomas Baker Calculus Scholarship in his last year at school. He saw active service during

enlisting in April 1915 with the

New Zealand Expeditionary Force The New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) was the title of the military forces sent from New Zealand to fight alongside other British Empire and Dominion troops during World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945). Ultimately, the NZE ...

, and serving in Gallipoli from November 1915, in Egypt, and at the

Western Front Western Front or West Front may refer to: Military frontiers *Western Front (World War I), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (World War II), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (Russian Empire), a majo ...

. He was seriously wounded at the

Somme __NOTOC__ Somme or The Somme may refer to: Places *Somme (department), a department of France *Somme, Queensland, Australia *Canal de la Somme, a canal in France *Somme (river), a river in France Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Somme'' (book), a ...

. He spent several months in hospital in Chelsea before being invalided out of the army and shipped home to New Zealand in March 1917. Resuming his studies Aitken graduated with an MA degree from the

University of Otago , image_name = University of Otago Registry Building2.jpg , image_size = , caption = University clock tower , motto = la, Sapere aude , mottoeng = Dare to be wise , established = 1869; 152 years ago , type = Public research collegiate u ...

in 1920, then worked as a schoolmaster at Otago Boys' High School from 1920 to 1923. Aitken studied for a doctorate (

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

) at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

, in Scotland, under

Edmund Taylor Whittaker Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker (24 October 1873 – 24 March 1956) was a British mathematician, physicist, and historian of science. Whittaker was a leading mathematical scholar of the early 20th-century who contributed widely to applied mathema ...

where his dissertation, "Smoothing of Data", was considered so impressive that he was awarded a DSc degree in 1925. Aitken's impact at the university had been so great that he had been elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This s ...

(FRSE) the year before the award of his degree, upon the proposal of

Sir Edmund Whittaker Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker (24 October 1873 – 24 March 1956) was a British mathematician, physicist, and historian of science. Whittaker was a leading mathematical scholar of the early 20th-century who contributed widely to applied mathema ...

Sir Charles Galton Darwin Sir Charles Galton Darwin (19 December 1887 – 31 December 1962) was an English physicist who served as director of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) during the Second World War. He was a son of the mathematician George Howard Darwin an ...

, Edward Copson and David Gibb. Aitken was awarded the Makdougall-Brisbane Prize for 1930–32, and was active in the affairs of the RSE, serving as Councillor (1934–36), Secretary to Ordinary Meetings (1936–40), and vice-president (1948–51; 1956–59). He was also an active member of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society and a Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries. Aitken spent his entire career at the University of Edinburgh, 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 World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

he worked in Hut 6

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...

decrypting ENIGMA code. Aitken was one of the best

mental calculator Human calculator is a term to describe a person with a prodigious ability in some area of mental calculation (such as adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing large numbers). The world's best mental calculators are invited every two yea ...

s known, and had a prodigious memory. He knew the first 1000 digits of

\pi

, the 96 recurring digits of 1/97, and memorised the ''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to ...

'' in high school. However, his inability to forget the horrors he witnessed in

led to recurrent depression throughout his life. Aitken was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematic ...

(FRS) in 1936 and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand (Hon FRSNZ) in 1940, both for his work in statistics,

algebra Algebra () is one of the areas of mathematics, broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathem ...

and

numerical analysis Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of numerical methods th ...

. He was an accomplished writer, being elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...

(FRSL) in 1964 in response to the publication of his war memoirs, ''Gallipoli to the Somme''. His book was the basis of an

oratorio An oratorio () is a large musical composition for orchestra, choir, and soloists. Like most operas, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias. However, opera is mus ...

of the same name by the New Zealand composer

Anthony Ritchie Anthony Damian Ritchie (born 18 September 1960) is a New Zealand composer and academic. He has been a freelance composer accepting commissions for works and in 2018 he became professor of composition at The University of Otago after 18 years ...

. 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

The New Zealand Mathematical Society and

London Mathematical Society The London Mathematical Society (LMS) is one of the United Kingdom's learned societies for mathematics (the others being the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), the Edinburgh Mathematical S ...

Aitken Lectureship occurs every two years (in odd-numbered years) when a mathematician from New Zealand is invited by both Societies to give lectures at different universities around the UK over a period of several weeks. The holders of Aitken Lectureship have been * Geoff Whittle (2011) * Robert Mclachlan (2013) * Steven Galbraith (2015) *

Hinke Osinga Hinke Maria Osinga (born 25 December 1969) is a Dutch mathematician and an expert in dynamical systems. She works as a professor of applied mathematics at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.. As well as for her research, she is known as a ...

(2017) * Bakhadyr Khoussainov (2019) 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

's Aitken Centenary Conference, a joint mathematics and statistics conference held to remember Aitken 100 years after his birth.

Personal life

He married Winifred Betts, a lecturer in biology and the first female lecturer appointed to the University of Otago, in 1920. They had a daughter and a son. Aitken died on 3 November 1967, in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

. Aitken's daughter, Elizabeth Aitken Rose, is a lecturer in urban planning at the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn ...

Life and work

Awards and honours

Personal life

References

Further reading