Stanley Skewes

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Stanley Skewes (* 1899 ; † 1988 ) was a South African mathematician with English roots. The Skewes number is named after him, which plays a role in the theory of prime numbers and which was previously considered to be one of the largest natural numbers that are important for mathematics.

His parents, Henry and Emily Skewes, were common people from Cornwall , England who immigrated to the Transvaal in South Africa in 1894 . After training as a civil engineer at the University of Cape Town , Stanley Skewes studied mathematics with a Queen Victoria scholarship from 1923 at the University of Cambridge (bachelor's degree in 1925, master's degree in 1929) and received his doctorate there in 1938 with John Edensor Littlewood on the subject "On The Difference Pi (X) - Li (X)". One of his college friends at King's College Cambridge was Alan Turing , with whom he was on the rowing team at Cambridge. He wrote the work that made him famous outside of Cambridge in 1932. He returned to South Africa after completing his studies, but was in Cambridge several times in the 1930s (and also at Heidelberg University), as well as on a sabbatical in 1957 ) in Cambridge.

In South Africa Stanley Skewes became a mathematics professor at the University of Cape Town (Capetown University).

He was also engaged in astronomy and was a member of the Royal Astronomical Society . In 1953 he received the Coronation Medal for the coronation of the British Queen.

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personal data
SURNAME Skewes, Stanley
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH 1899
DATE OF DEATH 1988