Arthur Stafford Hathaway (1855 — 1934) was an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

. Arthur was born September 15, 1855, in Keeler, Michigan. A student at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

, Hathaway earned a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in 1879. For two years he was instructor in mathematics at Friends High School in

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. Hathaway studied with James Joseph Sylvester at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

. From Sylvester's lectures he learned some

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 integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said, "Mat ...

and published notes on congruences. He was an instructor at Cornell University from 1885 to 1890 and an

assistant professor Assistant Professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States and Canada. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doctoral degree A docto ...

in 1891. In October 1884 William Thomson, Baron Kelvin led a

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on "Molecular Dynamics and the Wave Theory of Light" at Johns Hopkins. Kelvin did not provide a text for his course and Hathaway made notes in short-hand. He wrote up the notes and duplicated them with a Papyrograph, a recent stencil-based device. As the demand outstripped the supply, Hathaway corresponded with Kelvin back in Glasgow to prepare for proper publication. After nineteen years the lectures were published. In 1987 Hathaway's original transcription from 1884 was published when Johns Hopkins Center for the History and Philosophy of Science decided to commemorate the centennial of Kelvin's lectures.Robert Kargon and Peter Achinstein (1987) ''Kelvin’s Baltimore Lectures and Modern Theoretical Physics: historical and philosophical perspectives'',

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publish ...

In Terre Haute, Indiana Hathaway taught at

Rose Polytechnic Institute A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

until 1920 and published ''A Primer on Quaternions'' in 1896. He became the U.S. national secretary for the international

Quaternion Society The Quaternion Society was a scientific society, self-described as an "International Association for Promoting the Study of Quaternions and Allied Systems of Mathematics". At its peak it consisted of about 60 mathematicians spread throughout the ac ...

in 1899.

Works

* 1883
Some Papers in the Theory of Numbers

American Journal of Mathematics The ''American Journal of Mathematics'' is a bimonthly mathematics journal published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. History The ''American Journal of Mathematics'' is the oldest continuously published mathematical journal in the United S ...

6: 316–30. * 1887
A Memoir in the Theory of Numbers
''American Journal of Mathematics'' 9(2): 162–79. * 1896
A Primer on Quaternions
from

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital libr ...

* 1897
Review: ''Non-Euclidean Geometry, or the Science of Absolute Space''
by Bolyai, translated by Halsted, in

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

, February 19, link from Jstor Early Content. * 1901
A Primer on Calculus

Macmillan Publishers Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the 'Big Five' English language publ ...

, link from

Archive.org The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

. * 1901
"Pure mathematics for engineering students"

Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society The ''Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society'' is a quarterly mathematical journal published by the American Mathematical Society. Scope It publishes surveys on contemporary research topics, written at a level accessible to non-experts. I ...

7(6):266–71. * 1902
Quaternion Space

Transactions of the American Mathematical Society The ''Transactions of the American Mathematical Society'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of mathematics published by the American Mathematical Society. It was established in 1900. As a requirement, all articles must be more than 15 p ...

3(1):46–59. * 1906
Analytic Dynamics
from

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

Historical Math Collection. * 1920
Dog swims after duck problem
American Mathematical Monthly 27(1):31.

References

* Emily C. Warner (2004
Arthur S. Hathaway and the Theory of Numbers

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hathaway, Arthur Stafford 1855 births 1934 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians People from Van Buren County, Michigan Cornell University alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni Cornell University faculty Mathematicians from Michigan