Philip Bernard Stein, mathematician, was the son of Solomon Zebulin Stein and his wife Soroh Leah Malnik. The family emigrated to the Cape Colony in 1897, where Philip attended the Normal College School in Cape Town and passed the matriculation examination of the University of the Cape of Good Hope in 1906. Continuing his studies at the South African College, Cape Town, he was awarded the BA degree with honours in applied mathematics by the university of the Cape of Good Hope in 1909. In that year he was awarded the Ebden scholarship, which allowed him to continue his studies in mathematics at Caius College, Cambridge, for three years. By 1915 he was working in the Audit Department of the South African Railway Offices in Johannesburg, but in about 1917 joined the staff of the South African School of Mines and Technology, Johannesburg (from 1923 the University of the Witwatersrand). By this time he was a member of the South African Geographical Society and was scheduled to address its members in 1918 on 'Cosmic theories'. He also became a member of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science in 1917. In about 1918 he moved to the Natal University College in Pietermaritzburg (from 1950 the University of Natal). In 1926 he took leave of absence and continued his studies at the University of Cambridge, which awarded him a PhD degree in 1931 for two theses on the theory of functions: On equalities for certain integrals in the theory of Picard functions and On the asymptotic distribution of the values of an integral function. In 1920 he married Lily Rollnick, with whom he had three children.

Stein was appointed professor of mathematics and applied mathematics at the college's newly established Durban campus in 1931, a position he held until 1955. During these years he produced several papers: 'Note on a new type of continuously variable inductance of fixed resistance' (as co-author of H. Clark*; South African Journal of Science, 1932); 'On a theorem of M. Riesz' (1933) and 'On the solution of linear simultaneous equations by iteration' (with R.L. Rosenberg, 1948) in the Journal of the London Mathematical Society; 'The convergence of Seidel iterants of nearly symmetric matrices' (MTAC, 1951); and 'Some general theorems on iterants' (Journal of Research of the National Bureau of Standards, 1952). The latter paper was a report on a study of the properties of square matrices, performed under a contract between the American National Bureau of Standards and the University of California. While still at the Durban Campus of the University of Natal at this time, Stein was affiliated also with the University of California at Los Angeles. He continued publishing to 1967 and after his retirement taught for some years at the University of Makerere, Uganda, and at University College, Cardiff. One of his students described him as "an excellent and conscientious teacher and a force stimulating mathematics at all levels in South Africa for the many years of his active life. His quiet humour, his liberal outlook and his general reasonableness will be remembered by his many friends." (MacTutor, 2020).

List of sources:

Brookes, E.H. A history of the University of Natal. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1966.

Google Scholar. http://scholar.google.co.za Publications by P. Stein.

MacTutor: Philip Bernard Stein. Retrieved on 26 November 2020 from https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Stein_Philip/

Report of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science, 1918, list of members.

Ritchie, W. The history of the South African College, 1829-1918. Cape Town: T. Maskew Miller, 1918.

South African Geographical Journal, 1917, Vol. 1, pp. 36-37, List of members; p. 38, Lectures arranged for 1918.

South African Journal of Science, 1932, Vol. 29, pp. xlviii-lii, List of papers read at sectional meetings, 1932.

University of the Cape of Good Hope. Calendar, 1907/8, 1910/1, 1913/4-1917/8.

Compiled by: C. Plug

Last updated: 2025-12-22 12:17:23