Lee Lorch

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Lee Lorch (left) and Peter Szego at the Conference for African American Researchers in the Mathematical Sciences (CAARMS), Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), Berkeley, California, June 1995

Lee Alexander Lorch (born September 20, 1915 in New York City , † February 28, 2014 in Toronto , Canada ) was an American mathematician and activist . He has made contributions to various sub-areas of classical analysis , to Fourier analysis , to ordinary differential equations and to special functions .

life and work

Lorch was one of two sons and two daughters of Adolph Lorch and the teacher Florence Mayer Lorch. His father was born in Germany , immigrated to the USA in 1887 and was naturalized in 1900. His mother's family emigrated from Alsace-Lorraine . He attended Townsend Harris High School in Manhattan and graduated in 1932 with a state scholarship to study at Cornell University . He studied mathematics at Cornell University and earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1935 . He then studied at the University of Cincinnati , where he received a master's degree in 1936 . He received his doctorate there in 1941 under Otto Szász with the dissertation Some Problems on the Borel Summability of Fourier Series . In his dissertation he gave estimates for the Lebesgue constants of the Borel sum in some examples of divergent Fourier series of continuous functions. CN Moore had previously proven that the divergence of the Fourier series follows from the unbounded Lebesgue constants, and Lorch's estimates gave a quantitative version of this result. In the 1950s he had a number of publications on this topic in important specialist journals, later he worked with Peter Szego on estimates for singular integrals and higher monotonic properties of certain Sturm-Liouville functions.

After receiving his doctorate, he worked as a mathematician for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics , which exempted him from military service. He quit in 1943 to join the U.S. Army. Shortly before he was transferred overseas, he married Grace Lonergan . It was used in India and the Pacific War Zone before being demobilized in 1946.

After the war, he was an assistant professor at the City College of New York (CCNY) and lived with his wife and daughter in Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village , a New York housing project for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company that was being built on Manhattan's First Avenue for the war veterans was. He applied to Metropolitan Life to allow African Americans to rent apartments in Stuyvesant Town. He was vice-chairman of the tenants' committee and he tried to end the discrimination both through the courts and by influencing public opinion. The trial continued to the Supreme Court, but failed. He was more successful in influencing public opinion. Because of his political activities, he was fired from the CCNY in 1949, although the math department wanted him to be promoted.

Because of his math skills, he was appointed assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University in the fall of 1949 . When the family moved, they allowed an African American family to live in their New York apartment. In 1950 he was released again, whereupon he was appointed associate professor at Fisk University in Nashville , Tennessee , and was appointed deputy head of the math department. A year later he became head of the mathematics department and also supervised several theses. During this time he inspired many young people to become mathematicians, including Etta Zuber Falconer , Gloria Conyers Hewitt and Vivienne Malone-Mayes . In 1951, he protested when the Mathematical Association of America held a regional meeting at a whites-only hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, that did not allow African-American members of the association.

The United States Supreme Court on May 17, 1954 declared segregation in public education unconstitutional. In light of this decision, he and his wife decided to send their daughter to the school closest to their home, which was a school for African American people. However, the Nashville School Board declined to allow her daughter to attend school. As a result of this request, the Committee on Un-American Activities asked him about membership in the Communist Party . Refusing to respond, he was released after reviewing the Fisk College Trustees and was appointed to Philander Smith College in Little Rock , Arkansas . Here he became chairman of the mathematics department in 1957.

After moving to Little Rock with his family, they became active supporters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). A request that their daughter Alice may attend an elementary school for African American people in Little Rock was also rejected by the school authorities.

Lorch and his wife were linked to the history of the Little Rock Nine and the struggle for the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School. On the first day of school in 1957, three years after the desegregation in American schools was officially desegregated, the first African American students were to attend Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock. Fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Eckford arrived alone and faced an angry mob who threatened to lynch her. Grace Lorch saved Eckford and escorted her home. The rescue of Eckford made the Lorch family a target of harassment and threats. Dynamite was put in her garage, her daughter Alice was bullied at school, and Grace Lorch was summoned by the Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee.

The Lorch family left Little Rock in the spring of 1958 because of pressure from official harassment and continued job insecurity. After being blacklisted by most US universities, Lee Lorch moved to Canada with his family and accepted a position at the University of Alberta in Edmonton . In 1968 he moved to York University in Toronto , where he taught until his retirement in 1985.

Recognitions

Lorch has received a fellowship from the Royal Society of Canada , election to the councils of the Canadian Mathematical Society , the American Mathematical Society, and the Royal Society of Canada for his academic work .

Two of the colleges that fired him, Fisk University and the CCNY, awarded Lorch honorary doctorates . In 1990 he was also honored by the US National Academy of Sciences and in 1999 by Spelman College . In 2003 the International Society for Analysis, its Applications and Computation awarded him an honorary membership for outstanding mathematical contributions and for his commitment to the disadvantaged and world peace.

In 2007 he was by the Mathematical Association of America with the Yueh-Gin Gung and Dr. Charles Y. Hu Distinguished Service to Mathematics Award . In 2007, he was the first Canadian and one of only 17 non-Cubans elected to the Cuban Academy of Sciences . In 2012 he became a member of the American Mathematical Society .

Publications (selection)

  • The Lebesgue constants for Borel summability. Duke Math. J. 11, 459-467 (1944).
  • The Lebesgue constants for (E, 1) summation of Fourier series. Duke Math. J. 19, 45-50 (1952).
  • Asymptotic expressions for some integrals which include certain Lebesgue and Fejér constants. Duke Math. J. 20, 89-103 (1953).
  • Derivatives of infinite order . Pacific Journal of Mathematics 3, 773-778 (1953).
  • The principal term in the asymptotic expansion of the Lebesgue constants . American Mathematical Monthly, 245-249 (1954).
  • with Peter Szego : A singular integral whose kernel involves a Bessel function. Duke Math. J. 22, 407-418 (1955).
  • The limit of a certain integral containing a parameter . American Mathematical Monthly, 433 (1955).
  • with Peter Szego: Higher monotonicity properties of certain Sturm-Liouville functions. Acta Math. 109: 55-73 (1963).

literature

  • Anthony B. Newkirk: Lee and Grace Lorch in Little Rock, 1955-1958. In: Pulaski County Historical Review 64, 2016, pp. 96-111.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jean-Pierre Kahane : Lee Lorch, mathématicien et communiste, est mort. In: L'Humanité . March 5, 2014, accessed March 10, 2021 (French). Jean-Pierre Kahane: Lee Lorch, Mathematician and Communist, has Died. In: L'Humanité. March 9, 2014, accessed March 10, 2021 (English, translated by Henry Crapo).
  2. ^ A b c John O'Connor, Edmund Robertson : Lee Alexander Lorch. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive at the School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland. March 2014, accessed April 5, 2021 .
  3. ↑ Anna St. Onge: Black History Month featured funds: Lee and Grace Lorch. In: yorku.ca . February 24, 2012, accessed April 9, 2021 .
  4. ^ Scott W. Williams: An Appreciation to Lee Lorch. In: buffalo.edu . August 3, 2011, accessed April 9, 2021 .
  5. ↑ Grace K. Lorch FBI Statement Regarding Elizabeth Eckford Incident. In: uark.edu . September 8, 1957, accessed March 10, 2021 .
  6. ^ John O'Connor, Edmund Robertson: Lee Lorch Wins 2007 Yueh-Gin Gung and Charles Y Hu Award. In: st-andrews.ac.uk. March 2014, accessed March 10, 2021 .
  7. ^ Joel Eastwood: A Lifelong Battle. In: Toronto Star . March 14, 2014, accessed March 14, 2021 .
personal data
SURNAME Lorch, Lee
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lorch, Lee Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH September 20, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 2014
PLACE OF DEATH Toronto , Canada