Blog post: ajb: Welsh and famous

I have compiled a (very) short list of some of the important Welsh scientists and mathematicians throughout history. They are in no particular order.

 

Alfred Russel Wallace

Born 8 January 1823, Usk, Monmouthshire, Wales.

Died 7 November 1913 (aged 90) Broadstone, Dorset, England.

 

 

He independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection, which prompted Charles Darwin to publish his own ideas in On the Origin of Species.

 

Brian David Josephson

Born 4 January 1940 Cardiff, Wales.

 

He is known as a pioneer of the theoretical undesrstanding of superconductivity. He was awarded 1/2 share of the 1973 Nobel Prize for Physics for "his theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through a tunnel barrier, in particular those phenomena which are generally known as the Josephson effects".

 

William Jones

Born 1675, Llanfihangel Tre'r Beirdd, Isle of Anglesey

Died 3 July 1749

 

He proposed the use of the symbol ? (the Greek letter pi) to represent the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

 

Robert Recorde

Born ca. 1512, Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales

Died 1558 London, England

 

He introduced the "equals" sign (=) and also the "plus" sign(+) in 1557.

 

Elmer Gethin Rees

Born 1941 Llandybie, Carmarthenshire, Wales

A mathematician who has published in a diverse range of areas including topology, differential geometry, algebraic geometry, linear algebra and Morse theory.

 

Lyndon Evans

Born 1945 Aberdare Wales

Project leader of CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

 

Bertrand Arthur William Russell

Born 18 May 1872 Trellech, Monmouthshire, UK

Died 2 February 1970 (aged 97) Penrhyndeudraeth, Wales, UK

He co-authored, with A. N. Whitehead, Principia Mathematica, which was an attempt to set all mathematics on the basis of logic.
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