Leonard Roth
Leonard Roth (born August 29, 1904 in Edmonton, London , † November 28, 1968 in Pittsburgh ) was a British mathematician who studied algebraic geometry .
Roth was the son of a Jewish clothes shop owner and from 1923 studied mathematics on a scholarship at Clare College, Cambridge University . He studied there with John Edensor Littlewood and received his degree in 1926, where he was Wrangler with the Tripos . In research he turned to algebraic geometry under the influence of Henry Frederick Baker . He became a demonstrator at Imperial College London and in 1930/31 was on a Rockefeller scholarship in Rome with Francesco Severi , Guido Castelnuovo and Federigo Enriques (the heads of the Italian school of algebraic geometry) and with Tullio Levi-Civita . He also met his wife Marcella Baldesi there. In 1931 he became an assistant lecturer at Imperial College and in 1938 a lecturer . In 1950 he became a reader. In 1965 he was visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh , where he was Andrew Mellon Professor of Mathematics in 1967 .
In algebraic geometry he did research in the context of Severi's Italian school. He is best known for his textbook on algebraic geometry with John Greenlees Semple , published in 1949. The book leaves transcendent (analytical) and topological aspects aside, but is otherwise encyclopedic in terms of the variety of topics and with many concrete examples. He also wrote a monograph on three-dimensional algebraic varieties. Roth believed he had found varieties in three dimensions that were unirational but not rational, which was later refuted ( Jean-Pierre Serre 1959). In 1972 Phillip Griffiths and Herbert Clemens gave such a counterexample to the Lüroth problem in three dimensions and independently. 1971 Yuri Manin and Wassili Alexejewitsch Iskowskich .
He was the brother of literary critic QD Leavis .
Fonts
- with John Greenlees Semple: Introduction to algebraic geometry, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1949, Oxford University Press 1985
- Algebraic threefolds, with special regard to problems of rationality, Springer , results of mathematics and their border areas , 1955
- with Hyman Levy: Elements of probability, Clarendon Press 1936
- Modern elementary geometry, Thomas Nelson and Sons 1949, 1958
Web links
- John J. O'Connor, Edmund F. Robertson : Leonard Roth. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Michael Artin, David Mumford, Some Elementary Examples of Unirational Varieties Which are Not Rational, Proc. London Math. Soc., Vol. 25, 1972, pp. 75-95
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Roth, Leonard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British mathematician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 29, 1904 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 28, 1968 |
| Place of death | Pittsburgh |