Charles Albert Noble (1867–1962) 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 ...

, professor at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

Life and work

Noble was a son of a farmer from the

county of Santa Cruz Santa Cruz County (), officially the County of Santa Cruz, is a county on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 270,861. The county seat is Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz County comprises the Santa ...

, South of

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...

, but since he did not like agricultural work, he went to live with an older sister to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

where he completed his secondary education. He enrolled at the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

where he graduated in sciences in 1889. He then became a professor of mathematics at the Oakland High School. In 1893, wanting to obtain a doctorate in mathematics, he went to Europe to study at the

Göttingen University Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The orig ...

with

Felix Klein Christian Felix Klein (; 25 April 1849 – 22 June 1925) was a German mathematician and mathematics educator, known for his work with group theory, complex analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the associations between geometry and group ...

and

David Hilbert David Hilbert (; ; 23 January 1862 – 14 February 1943) was a German mathematician, one of the most influential mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many a ...

. In 1896, he returned to San Francisco and he was appointed professor of mathematics at the

. In 1901, he defended his doctoral thesis at Göttingen, under the direction of Hilbert. Noble was a fellow in mathematics, instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, professor, from 1896 to 1937, at Berkeley until his retirement in 1937. During the period 1933–34 he was the chairman of the mathematics department of the university and professor emeritus, 1937–1962. Along with

Earle Raymond Hedrick Earle Raymond Hedrick (September 27, 1876 – February 3, 1943), was an American mathematician and a vice-president of the University of California. Education and career Hedrick was born in Union City, Indiana. After undergraduate work at ...

, another American doctorate in Göttingen, Noble published a translation into English of the book by Klein ''Elementary Mathematics from an advanced standpoint'', in two volumes (1932 and 1939), that had a significant influence on the development of the American mathematical community. Noble was also very interested in mathematics pedagogy and in 1926 he made a trip to Germany to investigate the teaching system of mathematics in schools. His work was published in 1927 in the journal 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 ...

, ''

The American Mathematical Monthly ''The American Mathematical Monthly'' is a mathematical journal founded by Benjamin Finkel in 1894. It is published ten times each year by Taylor & Francis for the Mathematical Association of America. The ''American Mathematical Monthly'' is an e ...

''. He had been, in 1901, one of the founders of the San Francisco section of this association.

References

Bibliography

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External links

* * * , {{DEFAULTSORT:Noble, Charles Albert 19th-century American mathematicians 20th-century American mathematicians 1867 births 1962 deaths University of California, Berkeley faculty