David Matravers

Abstract

David Matravers (1937–2022) Roy Maartens and David Wands remember the distinguished and determined mathematician and cosmologist Prof. David Matravers passed away peacefully at his home in West Sussex on 31 May 2022, at the age of 84. He was an applied mathematician whose passion was general relativity: the mathematical description of curved spacetime, and gravity as a manifestation of that curvature. He was particularly interested in cosmology and the application of general relativity to our universe. David was born in Durban on 26 September 1937 to parents who had moved to South Africa from England. He completed his BSc degree at the University of Natal in South Africa before being appointed as a lecturer at Rhodes University, where he did his MSc and PhD under the supervision of the distinguished German mathematician Hanno Rund. David moved to the University of Cape Town first as a lecturer and then a professor, before becoming the head of the Department of Applied Mathematics. He became a regular visitor at the Mathematical Institute in Oxford, where he collaborated with Roger Penrose. Through Roger, David met many of the leading figures in relativity and cosmology in the UK.