Edith H. Luchins

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Edith H. Luchins (born December 21, 1921 in Brzeziny , Poland as Edith Hirsch ; † November 18, 2002 in Suffern , New York ) was an American mathematician and gestalt psychologist .

biography

Born in Poland as Edith Hirsch, the oldest of four children, she immigrated with her parents to New York City in 1927 . At Brooklyn College she earned her first degree (bachelor) in mathematics in 1942. During her time in high school, she attended courses in psychology led by Abraham S. Luchins , a student of the founder of Gestalt theory , Max Wertheimer . This not only began a passion for psychology, which was to have a major influence on her future life, but also a partnership in marriage, family and science. In 1944, she earned her Masters in Mathematics from New York University and began teaching mathematics at Brooklyn College that same year.

In 1949 she moved with her family to Montreal for five years , where her husband taught at McGill University . After Abraham S. Luchins received an appointment to the University of Oregon in 1954 and they moved there (they now had four children), she resumed her university degree in mathematics and completed it in 1957 with a doctorate with Bertram Yood ( On some properties of certain Banach algebras ).

Subsequently, Edith Luchins taught mathematics at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute from 1962 until her retirement in 1992. She was the first woman to receive a full professorship at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and one of the first women in the United States to attend a major University held a mathematics professorship.

From 1991-1992 she taught as visiting professor of mathematics at the United States Military Academy at West Point . After her retirement, she continued her teaching and research work at the Rensselaer Institute until shortly before her death.

Together with her husband Abraham S. Luchins, she published a large number of important studies on the further development of Gestalt theory in addition to her own mathematical work and was a member of the Advisory Board of the international journal Gestalt Theory from its founding in 1979 until her death.

Honors

  • Rensselaer Distinguished Teaching Award
  • Darrin Counseling Award
  • Martin Luther King Jr. Award
  • Rensselaer Alumni Association Outstanding Faculty Award
  • Award for Distinguished Public Service of the United States Military Academy at West Point
  • 1998 honorary member of the international society for gestalt theory and its applications

Works (selection)

  • 1959 (with Abraham S. Luchins): Rigidity of Behavior - A Variational Approach to the Effect of Setting. University of Oregon Books: Eugene, Oregon. Reprint 2003 Textbook Publishers, ISBN 0-7581-2895-9
  • 1965 (with Abraham S. Luchins): Logical Foundations of Mathematics for Behavioral Scientists . Holt, Rinehart: New York.
  • 1969 (with Abraham S. Luchins): The Search for Factors that Extremize the Autokinetic Effect . Faculty-Student Association: State University of New York at Albany.
  • 1970 (with Abraham S. Luchins): Wertheimer's Seminars Revisited: Problem Solving And Thinking, Vols. I, II and III, SUNY, Albany.
  • 1979 (with Abraham S. Luchins): Introduction to the Einstein-Wertheimer Correspondence, Methodology and Science , Special Einstein Issue, 12, 165-202.
  • 1982 (with Abraham S. Luchins): An Introduction to the Origins of Wertheimer's Gestalt Psychology, Gestalt Theory, 4 (3-4), 145-171.
  • 1988 (with Abraham S. Luchins): The Einstein-Wertheimer Correspondence on Geometric Proofs, The Mathematical Intelligencer, 12 (2), pp. 35-43.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographies of Women Mathematicians: Edith H. Luchins , accessed November 4, 2012.
  2. ^ Mathematics Genealogy Project
personal data
SURNAME Luchins, Edith H.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hirsch, Edith (maiden name); Luchins, Edith Hirsch
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American gestalt psychologist and mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH December 21, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Brzeziny , Poland
DATE OF DEATH November 18, 2002
Place of death Suffern , New York , USA