Peter Alcantara Pillai
1904 - 1964

A brief biography.

Peter Alcantara Pillai (1904-1964) a man of remarkable intelligence, was born in 1904 in Wennappuwa, a then godforsaken outpost on the west coast of the island.
His father was a lowly paid teacher who could hardly support the family of five boys including Peter, the youngest.

His paternal grandfather was a sharecropper. Peter financed his education with scholarships obtaining MA, MSc, PhD, specialising in Physics and Maths, from the University of London and a Doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Rome.

He was literate in physics and maths and knew in depth the true elegance
of both subjects, so much so, that a stellar mathematician from the
University of Madras, (from where Microsoft chairman Bill Gates
gets his mathematicians) whom I believe was Subramaniam
Chandrasekhar, called him a real genius. www.island lk/2001/03/20
He received the priesthood, was teacher on the Joseph-College in
 Colombo and founded there the Aquinas University.

Sri Lanka 1985, Mi 701, Sc 754.

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