User:Garry John Tee

After Garry Tee graduated from Auckland University College as M.Sc. (N.Z.), his first job was as a computer, with an oil-prospecting team in northwest Australia. In 1958, human computers began to be supplemented by electronic computers in geophysics, and it was obvious to him that electronic digital computers were going to become extremely important. Accordingly, he went to England, where he became a mathematician in English Electric Company, which manufactured DEUCE computers (based on Alan Turing’s design for ACE). From 1964 to 1968 he was a foundation member of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Lancaster, and then he returned to the Department of Mathematics at the University of Auckland.

He has worked mostly on numerical analysis, and on the history of science. He has looked around in New Zealand and Australia for historical scientific material, and has found much more than he expected. In particular, he has found very many relics of Charles Babbage and many letters from Charles Darwin, plus numerous manuscripts of other eminent scientists, and he has published accounts of those relics.