Edward Burr Van Vleck (June 7, 1863,
Middletown,
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...
– June 3, 1943,
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...
) 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 ...
.
Early life
Van Vleck was born June 7, 1863,
Middletown,
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...
. He was the son of astronomer
John Monroe Van Vleck, he graduated from
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University ( ) is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the col ...
in 1884, attended
Johns Hopkins in 1885–87, and studied at
Göttingen
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 ori ...
(Ph.D., 1893). He also received 1 July 1914 an
honorary doctorate
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...
of the
University of Groningen (The Netherlands). He was assistant professor and professor at
Wesleyan
Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan– Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charle ...
(1895–1906), and after 1906 a professor at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...
, where the mathematics building is named after him.
Sterling Hall map
Van Vleck Hall is adjacent to Sterling Hall, where the Sterling Hall bombing occurred in August 1970, but Van Vleck Hall suffered merely broken windows. His doctoral students include H. S. Wall. In 1913 he became president of the American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...
, of whose '' Transactions'' he had been first associate editor (1902–05) and then editor (1905–10). He was the author of ''Theory of Divergent Series and Algebraic Continued Fractions'' (1903), and of several monographs in mathematical journals. His son, John Hasbrouck Van Vleck, was a notable physicist who received the Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
in 1977.
Japanese art collector
E. B. Van Vleck is also important art collector, particularly in the medium of Japanese woodblock prints (principally ''Ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk t ...
''), known as ''Van Vleck Collection''. He began collecting around 1909, but became a serious collector in the late 1920s, when he acquired approximately 4,000 prints that had been owned by Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...
. His collection, one of the largest in the world outside the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
, features more than 2,000 prints by Utagawa Hiroshige
Utagawa Hiroshige (, also ; ja, 歌川 広重 ), born Andō Tokutarō (; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist, considered the last great master of that tradition.
Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format l ...
as well as many prints by Hokusai, and fine examples of ''shin hanga
was an art movement in early 20th-century Japan, during the Taishō and Shōwa periods, that revitalized the traditional ''ukiyo-e'' art rooted in the Edo and Meiji periods (17th–19th century). It maintained the traditional ''ukiyo-e'' co ...
'' (new prints) made well into the 20th century. His collection now resides at the Chazen Museum of Art
The Chazen Museum of Art is an art museum located at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Madison, Wisconsin. The Chazen Museum of Art is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
History
Until 2005, the Museum was known regularly as th ...
in Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...
.[''E. B. Van Vleck Collection''](_blank)
, Chazen Museum of Art
Writings
*
*
*
*
Selected topics in the theory of divergent series and of continued fractions
(New York; MacMillan, 1905).
See also
* Arcsine law
*Gauss's continued fraction In complex analysis, Gauss's continued fraction is a particular class of continued fractions derived from hypergeometric functions. It was one of the first analytic continued fractions known to mathematics, and it can be used to represent several i ...
*Van Vleck polynomials
A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and bigger than a common car. There is some varying in the scope of the word across ...
* Van Vleck's theorem
* Carol S. Wood, Edward Burr Van Vleck Professor of Mathematics, Emerita at Wesleyan
Notes
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Van Vleck, Edward Burr
1863 births
1943 deaths
People from Middletown, Connecticut
Wesleyan University alumni
19th-century American mathematicians
20th-century American mathematicians
University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty
Presidents of the American Mathematical Society
American art collectors
Mathematicians from Connecticut