Emma Lehmer

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Emma Lehmer (born Emma Markowna Trotskaja , Russian Эмма Марковна Троцкая ) (born November 6, 1906 in Samara , † May 7, 2007 in Berkeley ) was an American mathematician who dealt with number theory.

Life

Emma born Trotskaja grew up in Harbin from 1910 , where his father worked as a representative for a Russian sugar factory. She was homeschooled until she was 14 years old. For her higher education, she went to the USA, as training in the Russian centers was difficult due to the turmoil of the revolution, and began studying engineering at the University of California, Berkeley in 1924 , but quickly switched to mathematics, which she studied with Derrick Norman Lehmer among others studied. There she met Derrick Henry Lehmer , the son of her professor and just like this number theorist. Both created number-theoretic tables for Derrick N. Lehmer in arduous arithmetic work. After completing her bachelor's degree in 1928 (“summa cum laude”), she married Derrick Lehmer in the same year. Both went to Brown University , where they received their masters degree in 1930 (with the thesis A numerical function applied to cyclotomy , Bulletin American Mathematical Society, Vol. 36, 1930, p. 291) and Derrick Lehmer received his doctorate. Emma Lehmer did not do a PhD herself, but worked closely with her husband in the field of number theory. At that time, kinship rules at many US universities forbade both couples to be professors. Only during World War II did she teach at Berkeley University, where Derrick H. Lehmer went in 1940 and stayed until his retirement. Before that, during the Depression of the 1930s, they were at Caltech , Stanford University , the Institute for Advanced Study and Lehigh University, and in England in Cambridge and the University of Manchester in 1938/39 . During the Second World War, Emma and Derrick Lehmer were also able to use the ENIAC computer at the Aberdeen Proving Ground for number theoretic calculations when they were not working on military programs.

Of her 60 publications, 21 are collaborative works with her husband. In particular, she later dealt with reciprocity laws, about which she also corresponded with Helmut Hasse .

Lehmer translated the Topological Groups from Lew Pontrjagin into English (published in 1939 by Princeton University Press).

Emma Lehmer and her husband had a son Donald (* 1934) and a daughter Laura (* 1932).

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personal data
SURNAME Lehmer, Emma
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Trotskaya, Emma Markovna
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH November 6, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Samara
DATE OF DEATH May 7, 2007
Place of death Berkeley