BRILLIANT SCHOLAR

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 99, 21 January 1943, Page 4

BRILLIANT SCHOLAR

Honorary Degree Conferred Dominion Special Service. DUNEDIN, January 20. The lionornry degree of doctor of science in the University of New Zealand was conferred by the New Zealand University Senate today on Dr. Alexander Craig Aitken, M.A. (N.Z.),D.Se. (Edin.), F.R.S. The granting of this degree is restricted to exceptional recommendations ami only a few awards have been made. Well known for his academic achievements in New Zealand and abroad, Dr. Aitken was educated at Otago Boys’ High School and Otago University and was for a time a master at Otago High School.

By energetic studies in an overseas hospital while recovering from wounds received during the last war, Dr. Aitken was awarded senior scholarships in pure mathematics, applied mathematics and Latin, securing first place in each instance. He was encouraged to proceed to Edinburgh University, where he undertook a research course in 1925. He submitted a thesis for the degree of I’h.D., but it was so highly thought of that lie was granted a doctorate of science and appointed lecturer in statistics and inatbematicnl economics at Edinburgh, and he still holds this appointment. Dr. Aitken is well known for remarkable mathematical capabilities, being considered by the authorities to be one of the most gitted in the world. As a result of his output of original papers he was in .1939 elected a Fellow of the Loyal Society and in 1932 the Royal Society of Edinburgh awarded him the MacdougalBrisbane Medal and Prize Award, which had been granted io the scientist Joseph Lister 60 years previously for his work on the germ theory of pntrclaction. 11l 1932, Professor YVhittaker, of Edinburgh University, stated that lie thought Dr. Aitken the greatest British algebraist since Dr. Arthur Cayley (IS2I-.):j).