Aubrey John Kempner (22 September 1880, in

Greater London Greater may refer to: *Greatness, the state of being great *Greater than, in inequality (mathematics), inequality *Greater (film), ''Greater'' (film), a 2016 American film *Greater (flamingo), the oldest flamingo on record *Greater (song), "Greate ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

– 18 November 1973, in

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...

) was an English-born American mathematician, known for the

Kempner function Kempner may refer to: People *Alan H. Kempner (1897–1985), American stockbroker and rare books collector, son-in-law of Carl Loeb who founded Loeb, Rhoades & Co. * Alicia Kempner, American bridge player * Aubrey J. Kempner (1880–1973), British ...

and the Kempner series. Aubrey Kempner received in 1911 his PhD with the dissertation ''Über das Waringsche Problem und einige Verallgemeinerungen'' under Edmund Landau at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

. He then went to the US and taught at the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

and from 1925 at the

University of Colorado at Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado sys ...

, where he remained until 1949 and from 1944 to 1949 was chair of the mathematics department. From 1950 he also taught at the Colorado School of Medicine and at the

National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...

in Boulder. Kempner's research was mainly in

number theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic function, integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777� ...

and the theory of calculating the center of mass of a region defined by polynomial equations. In his honor the mathematics faculty of the University of Colorado at Boulder established the Kempner Colloquium. In the years 1937 and 1938 he was president of the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university, college, and high school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure a ...

.Kempner
at the MAA website

Publications

* * *

References

20th-century American mathematicians Presidents of the Mathematical Association of America 1880 births 1973 deaths British emigrants to the United States {{mathematician-stub