Dame Mary Cartwright

Marcus Littleton

Dame Mary Cartwright was a famous mathematician who was entirely dedicated to her craft. In 1923, she temporarily went into teaching for 3 years before returning to mathematical study. Her time spent teaching gave her a strong sympathy for teachers and a desire to improve the possibilities for education in schools. Cartwright gained infamy during her studies by forming a theorem for a problem that J.E. Littlewood had presented to her class. She was the first person to obtain significant results from a p-valent function using this theorem and it's known today as, Cartwright’s Theorem. During the time of World War 2, Cartwright and Littlewood worked together with the Van Der Pol differentiable equation and their collaboration planted the seed for an entirely new branch of mathematics now known as Chaos Theory. Her dedication to understanding mathematics and it’s applications resulted in her becoming the first woman to receive a Sylvester Medal, to serve on the Council of the Royal Society, to be the President of the Mathematical Association, and to be President of the London Mathematical Society.

• Marcus Littleton is studying mathematics and programming here at Lander University to find new applications for higher level mathematics in computer programming.