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Godfrey Harold Hardy (1877-1947)
Godfrey Harold Hardy was
a pure mathematician who aided Wilhelm Weinberg, a German physician
develop a solution to the problem of genetic equilibrium. From 1906
to 1919 Hardy lectured at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1919 he
was appointed to the Savilian chair of geometry at Oxford. In 1931
he returned to Cambridge as Sadleirian professor of pure
mathematics.
Hardy was a pure mathematician who hoped his mathematics could never be applied. However in 1908, near the beginning of his career he gave a law describing the proportions of dominant and recessive genetic traits would be propagated in a large population. Hardy considered it unimportant but it has proved of major importance in blood group distribution.
Hardy's book A mathematicians apology was written in 1940. It is one of the most vivid descriptions of how a mathematician thinks and the pleasure of mathematics.
Information courtesy of http://history.math.csusb.edu/~history/BigPictures/hardy.html - Historical Mathematicians Web site.