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/ 10 January 2007

Mathematician paved way to fibre optics

Martin David Kruskal, a mathematician whose work on the properties of an unusual type of wave helped pave the way for fibre-optic technology, died on December 26. He was 81. Kruskal’s best-known advance came in the 1960s when he was able to use equations to explain a phenomenon first recorded in 1834.