Joseph Fels Ritt (August 23, 1893 – January 5, 1951) 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 ...
at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in the early 20th century. He was born and died in
New York.
After beginning his undergraduate studies at
City College of New York, Ritt received his B.A. from
George Washington University
The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Chartered in 1821 by the United States Congress, GWU is the largest Higher educat ...
in 1913. He then earned a doctorate in mathematics from Columbia University in 1917 under the supervision of
Edward Kasner
Edward Kasner (April 2, 1878 – January 7, 1955) was an American mathematician who was appointed Tutor on Mathematics in the Columbia University Mathematics Department. Kasner was the first Jewish person appointed to a faculty position in t ...
. After doing calculations for the war effort in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, he joined the Columbia faculty in 1921. He served as department chair from 1942 to 1945, and in 1945 became the Davies Professor of Mathematics.
[.] In 1932, George Washington University honored him with a Doctorate in Science,
[.] and in 1933 he was elected to join the
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
.
He has 463
academic descendants listed in the
Mathematics Genealogy Project
The Mathematics Genealogy Project (MGP) is a web-based database for the academic genealogy of mathematicians.. By 31 December 2021, it contained information on 274,575 mathematical scientists who contributed to research-level mathematics. For a ty ...
, mostly through his student
Ellis Kolchin
Ellis Robert Kolchin (April 18, 1916 – October 30, 1991) was an American mathematician at Columbia University. Kolchin earned a doctorate in mathematics from Columbia University in 1941 under supervision of Joseph Ritt. He was awarded a Gugg ...
. Ritt was an Invited Speaker with talk ''Elementary functions and their inverses'' at the
ICM in 1924 in Toronto and a Plenary Speaker at the ICM in 1950 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Ritt founded
differential algebra
In mathematics, differential rings, differential fields, and differential algebras are rings, fields, and algebras equipped with finitely many derivations, which are unary functions that are linear and satisfy the Leibniz product rule. A n ...
theory, which was subsequently much developed by him and his student Ellis Kolchin.
He is known for his work on characterizing the
indefinite integral
In calculus, an antiderivative, inverse derivative, primitive function, primitive integral or indefinite integral of a function is a differentiable function whose derivative is equal to the original function . This can be stated symbolicall ...
s that can be solved in closed form, for his work on the theory of
ordinary differential equation
In mathematics, an ordinary differential equation (ODE) is a differential equation whose unknown(s) consists of one (or more) function(s) of one variable and involves the derivatives of those functions. The term ''ordinary'' is used in contrast ...
s and
partial differential equations, for beginning the study of
differential algebraic groups,
and for the method of
characteristic sets used in the solution of systems of polynomial equations.
Despite his great achievements, he was never awarded any prize for his work, a fact which he resented, as he felt he was underappreciated. He once composed the following epitaph for himself:
:Here at your feet J. F. Ritt lies;
:He never won the
Bôcher prize.
Selected works
*
Differential equations from the algebraic standpoint', New York, American Mathematical Society 1932
* ''Theory of Functions'', New York 1945, 1947
* ''Integration in finite terms: Liouville's Theory of Elementary Methods'', Columbia University Press 1948
* ''Differential Algebra'', American Mathematical Society 1950,
Dover 1966
See also
*
Ritt characteristic set
*
Ritt theorem
*
Ritt's polynomial decomposition theorem
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ritt, Joseph
1893 births
1951 deaths
20th-century American mathematicians
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Columbia University alumni
Columbia University faculty