Mary Lucy Cartwright: A

famous mathematician
“Very few women have been elected to
the Royal society who combine
teaching and research, still fewer
combine marriage and the Royal
society.”

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 Who was Mary Lucy?
Let’s start with the first set of slides
 Who was Mary Lucy?
Dame Mary Lucy Cartwright, DBE, FRS, FRSE was
born on 17 December, 1990 and died on 3 April,
1998. She was a famous British mathematician.

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 What is she known for?
She was one of the pioneers of what would later become
known as the chaos theory which is a theory stating that,
within the randomness of chaotic complex systems, there
are underlying patterns, interconnectedness, constant
feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, and self-
organization. Cartwright saw many solutions to a problem
which would later be seen as an example of the butterfly
effect.

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Mary Cartwright
This is what she looked
like.

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 Achievements
✘ One of five women studying mathematics at
Oxford University.
✘ Made ground-breaking contributions to the
chaos theory.
✘ She won the De Morgan Medal (a prize for
outstanding contribution to mathematics).

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✘ She published over 100 papers in classical
analysis, differential equations, and related
topological problems.
✘ Her work also enabled significant practical
improvements to the radio amplifiers used for
communication during World War II.

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 THANKS!
Hope you enjoyed.