James Pierpont (mathematician)

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James P. Pierpont (born June 16, 1866 in Connecticut , † December 9, 1938 in San Mateo , California ) was an American mathematician .

life and work

Pierpont came from an old New England family, one of his ancestors (the pastor James Pierpont (1659-1714)) was a co-founder of Yale University (then and still during the lifetime of James Pierpont Yale College ). He was the son of wealthy New Haven businessman Cornelius Pierpont and studied at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute , where he switched from engineering to mathematics. From 1886 he continued his studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin (where he was particularly influenced by Leopold Kronecker ) and at the University of Vienna , where he received his doctorate under Leopold Gegenbauer in 1894 ( on the history of the fifth degree equation up to 1858 , monthly books for Mathematics 1895). There he made friends with Wilhelm Wirtinger and Gustav von Escherich . He was then a lecturer at Yale University, where he was an instructor in 1895, an assistant professor in 1896 and a professor in 1898. In 1933 he retired. Among other things, he was visiting professor at Harvard University (1899/1900) and at the University of California, Berkeley (1929).

Pierpont was one of the pioneers who taught mathematics in the USA using modern methods learned at continental European universities. He dealt with algebra ( Galois theory ) and later with real and complex function theory. In his book on real analysis he introduced a concept related to the Lebesgue integral , but which was criticized by Maurice René Fréchet . Pierpont himself used the term Lebesgue integral in his lectures. Later he dealt with non-Euclidean geometry.

In 1896 he gave the first Colloquium Lectures of the American Mathematical Society with Maxime Bôcher in Buffalo (his lectures were some of the few Colloquium Lectures that did not appear in print). In 1925 he was Gibbs Lecturer at the American Mathematical Society. In 1924 he gave a plenary lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in Toronto ( Non-euclidean geometry from non-projective standpoint ). In 1909 he received an honorary doctorate from Clark University . At the turn of the century he was a co-founder of the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society.

Fonts

  • Lectures on the theory of functions of real variables (2 volumes), Ginn and Company, Boston 1905, 1912 (English)
  • Functions of a complex variable , Ginn and Company, Boston 1914 (English)

literature

Web links

References

  1. ↑ According to Øystein Ore, the criticism is mainly based on misunderstandings of Pierpont's mathematical notation. Pierpont's answers to Fréchet can be found in the Bulletin of the AMS 1915-1917
personal data
SURNAME Pierpont, James
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pierpont, James P.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH June 16, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Connecticut
DATE OF DEATH December 9, 1938
Place of death San Mateo , California