Billy James Pettis

Billy James Pettis ( 1913 - April 14, 1979 ) was an American mathematician .

Billy James Pettis grew up in Spartanburg , South Carolina . In 1932 he obtained a Master of Arts degree from the University of North Carolina , in 1937 he received his PhD from the University of Virginia with a dissertation on Integration in Vector Spaces under the supervision of Edward McShane . After stays at the University of Virginia (1937-1938), Yale University (1938-1939) and Harvard University (1939-1941), he volunteered in the US Army . Then Pettis turned back to mathematics, he taught at Yale University (1945-1947), Tulane University (1947-1957) and finally moved to the University of North Carolina, where he stayed until his death.

His main field of research was the functional analysis , here are particularly Messbarkeitssatz of Pettis , the Orlicz-Pettis theorem , the set of Dunford-Pettis , the Dunford-Pettis property and the Pettis integral emphasized. He researched the theorem of the closed graph and the theorem on the open mapping in certain topological vector spaces . The set of Milman became independent also proved by Pettis, which is why you often from the set of Milman-Pettis says.

The University of North Carolina had for the 17th – 19th May 1979 a conference on Integration, Topology, and Geometry in Linear Spaces was planned to coincide with Pettis' retirement. A few weeks earlier he succumbed to cancer. The proceedings were dedicated to Billy James Pettis.

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• A Guide to the BJ Pettis Papers ( University of Texas at Austin )
• Proceedings of the Conference on Integration, Topology, and Geometry in Linear Spaces. American Mathematical Society , 1979, ISBN 0-8218-5002-4