The Most Famous
MATHEMATICIANS from New Zealand
This page contains a list of the greatest New Zealander Mathematicians. The pantheon dataset contains 823 Mathematicians, 3 of which were born in New Zealand. This makes New Zealand the birth place of the 35th most number of Mathematicians behind Israel and Spain.
Top 3
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary New Zealander Mathematicians of all time. This list of famous New Zealander Mathematicians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Roy Kerr (1934 - )
With an HPI of 50.77, Roy Kerr is the most famous New Zealander Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 20 different languages on wikipedia.
Roy Patrick Kerr (; born 16 May 1934) is a New Zealand mathematician who discovered the Kerr geometry, an exact solution to the Einstein field equation of general relativity. His solution models the gravitational field outside an uncharged rotating massive object, including a rotating black hole. His solution to Einstein's equations predicted spinning black holes before they were discovered.
2. Vaughan Jones (1952 - 2020)
With an HPI of 45.36, Vaughan Jones is the 2nd most famous New Zealander Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 31 different languages.
Sir Vaughan Frederick Randal Jones (31 December 1952 – 6 September 2020) was a New Zealand mathematician known for his work on von Neumann algebras and knot polynomials. He was awarded a Fields Medal in 1990.
3. Alexander Aitken (1895 - 1967)
With an HPI of 42.55, Alexander Aitken is the 3rd most famous New Zealander Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.
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, along with now standard vector/matrix notation for the linear regression model. Another influential paper co-authored with his student Harold Silverstone established the lower bound on the variance of an estimator, now known as Cramér–Rao bound. He was elected to the Royal Society of Literature for his World War I memoir, Gallipoli to the Somme.
Pantheon has 3 people classified as mathematicians born between 1895 and 1952. Of these 3, 1 (33.33%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living mathematicians include Roy Kerr. The most famous deceased mathematicians include Vaughan Jones and Alexander Aitken. As of April 2022, 1 new mathematicians have been added to Pantheon including Alexander Aitken.
