Mathematics genealogy project

Mathematics Genealogy Project

Mission Statement

The intent of this project is to compile information about ALL the mathematicians of the world. We earnestly solicit information from all schools who participate in the development of research level mathematics and from all individuals who may know desired information.

Please notice: Throughout this project when we use the word “mathematics” or “mathematician” we mean that word in a very inclusive sense. Thus, all relevant data from statistics, computer science, or operations research is welcome.

In the following paragraphs we shall try to outline our goals and our underlying philosophy for the genealogy project. It is our goal to list all individuals who have received a doctorate in mathematics. For each individual we plan to show the following:

The complete name of the degree recipient
The name of the university which awarded the degree
The year in which the degree was awarded
The complete title of the dissertation
The complete name(s) of the advisor(s)
Please note: For the earlier periods the advisor/advisee relationship may not have been nearly so formal as it is in modern times. Thus, the links shown for those periods may reflect a mentor/student circumstance that is somewhat different than the links for more recent decades. Please remember: We are trying to help trace the intellectual history of our subject. Moreover, we acknowledge that the model we are using may well be anachronistic for the earlier periods.

Potential problems

Each of the five items can potentially be troublesome. Consider the name. Most of our data comes from either the university or the Dissertation Abstracts. Neither source is perfect. Moreover, in some instances the name that was recorded in the archives at the time the degree was awarded is not the name by which the individual is known today. When we are aware of such a shift, e. g., a

change due to marriage, a change in the choice of the individual’s preference or, perhaps, a revised spelling; then we try to accomodate the change. Sometimes we have for historical completeness chosen to show the entire name. See, for example, E. H. Moore, where on his page we also show Eliakim Hastings. If a person routinely uses a middle name instead of the first name and we are aware of this, then we show the name as in the following example: C. Felix Klein and on his page we show Christian. See the paragraph below for tips on searching.

The name of the institution is also subject to change. For the most part we tend to show the name by which the institution is known today. Thus the diploma that was given to Carl E. Langenhop showed the awarding institution was Iowa State College; we show this school as Iowa State University.

We would like to show the year in which the degree was awarded. However, some sources show the year according to when the notification was received. When so informed we will try to correct this sort of error.

We would like to give the complete dissertation title for everybody. However, currently our ability is limited by certain technical considerations. As these are resolved there may be more detail in the titles. Please help us by sending us corrections when the titles are incomplete or contain undecoded TEX code or other errors.

Comments on searching

We try to show complete names. If, however, the name by which you know a person does not appear in a search on last and first names then try entering the name as a middle name.