Leonard Eugene Dickson (January 22, 1874 – January 17, 1954) 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 ...
. He was one of the first American researchers in
abstract algebra
In mathematics, more specifically algebra, abstract algebra or modern algebra is the study of algebraic structures. Algebraic structures include groups, rings, fields, modules, vector spaces, lattices, and algebras over a field. The term ''a ...
, in particular the theory of finite
fields
Fields may refer to:
Music
*Fields (band), an indie rock band formed in 2006
*Fields (progressive rock band), a progressive rock band formed in 1971
* ''Fields'' (album), an LP by Swedish-based indie rock band Junip (2010)
* "Fields", a song by ...
and
classical group
In mathematics, the classical groups are defined as the special linear groups over the reals , the complex numbers and the quaternions together with special automorphism groups of symmetric or skew-symmetric bilinear forms and Hermitian or ske ...
s, and is also remembered for a three-volume history of
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 ...
, ''
History of the Theory of Numbers
''History of the Theory of Numbers'' is a three-volume work by L. E. Dickson summarizing work in number theory up to about 1920. The style is unusual in that Dickson mostly just lists results by various authors, with little further discussion. T ...
''.
Life
Dickson considered himself a Texan by virtue of having grown up in
Cleburne, where his father was a banker, merchant, and real estate investor. He attended the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
, where
George Bruce Halsted
George Bruce Halsted (November 25, 1853 – March 16, 1922), usually cited as G. B. Halsted, was an American mathematician who explored foundations of geometry and introduced non-Euclidean geometry into the United States through his own work and ...
encouraged his study of mathematics. Dickson earned a B.S. in 1893 and an M.S. in 1894, under Halsted's supervision. Dickson first specialised in Halsted's own specialty,
geometry
Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...
.
A. A. Albert
Abraham Adrian Albert (November 9, 1905 – June 6, 1972) was an American mathematician. In 1939, he received the American Mathematical Society's Cole Prize in Algebra for his work on Riemann matrices. He is best known for his work on the ...
(1955
Leonard Eugene Dickson 1874–1954
from 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 ...
Both the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
and
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
welcomed Dickson as a Ph.D. student, and Dickson initially accepted Harvard's offer, but chose to attend Chicago instead. In 1896, when he was only 22 years of age, he was awarded Chicago's first doctorate in mathematics, for a dissertation titled ''The Analytic Representation of Substitutions on a Power of a Prime Number of Letters with a Discussion of the Linear Group'', supervised by
E. H. Moore
Eliakim Hastings Moore (; January 26, 1862 – December 30, 1932), usually cited as E. H. Moore or E. Hastings Moore, was an American mathematician.
Life
Moore, the son of a Methodist minister and grandson of US Congressman Eliakim H. Moore, di ...
.
Dickson then went to
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
and
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
to study under
Sophus Lie
Marius Sophus Lie ( ; ; 17 December 1842 – 18 February 1899) was a Norwegian mathematician. He largely created the theory of continuous symmetry and applied it to the study of geometry and differential equations.
Life and career
Marius Sophu ...
and
Camille Jordan
Marie Ennemond Camille Jordan (; 5 January 1838 – 22 January 1922) was a French mathematician, known both for his foundational work in group theory and for his influential ''Cours d'analyse''.
Biography
Jordan was born in Lyon and educated at ...
, respectively. On returning to the US, he became an instructor at the
University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...
. In 1899 and at the extraordinarily young age of 25, Dickson was appointed associate professor at the University of Texas. Chicago countered by offering him a position in 1900, and he spent the balance of his career there. At Chicago, he supervised 53 Ph.D. theses; his most accomplished student was probably
A. A. Albert
Abraham Adrian Albert (November 9, 1905 – June 6, 1972) was an American mathematician. In 1939, he received the American Mathematical Society's Cole Prize in Algebra for his work on Riemann matrices. He is best known for his work on the ...
. He was a visiting professor at the
University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...
in 1914, 1918, and 1922. In 1939, he returned to Texas to retire.
Dickson married Susan McLeod Davis in 1902; they had two children, Campbell and Eleanor.
Dickson was elected to the
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 ...
in 1913, and was also a member of the American Philosophical Society, the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
, the
London Mathematical Society
The London Mathematical Society (LMS) is one of the United Kingdom's learned societies for mathematics (the others being the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), the Edinburgh Mathematical S ...
, the
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific me ...
and the Union of Czech Mathematicians and Physicists. Dickson was the first recipient of a prize created in 1924 by The American Association for the Advancement of Science, for his work on the arithmetics of algebras. Harvard (1936) and Princeton (1941) awarded him honorary doctorates.
Dickson presided over 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, ...
in 1917–1918. His December 1918 presidential address, titled "Mathematics in War Perspective", criticized American mathematics for falling short of those of Britain, France, and Germany:
:"Let it not again become possible that thousands of young men shall be so seriously handicapped in their Army and Navy work by lack of adequate preparation in mathematics."
In 1928, he was also the first recipient of the
Cole Prize The Frank Nelson Cole Prize, or Cole Prize for short, is one of twenty-two prizes awarded to mathematicians by the American Mathematical Society, one for an outstanding contribution to algebra, and the other for an outstanding contribution to number ...
for algebra, awarded annually by the AMS, for his book ''Algebren und ihre Zahlentheorie''.
It appears that Dickson was a hard man:
:"A hard-bitten character, Dickson tended to speak his mind bluntly; he was always sparing in his praise for the work of others. ... he indulged his serious passions for bridge and billiards and reportedly did not like to lose at either game."
:"He delivered terse and unpolished lectures and spoke sternly to his students. ... Given Dickson's intolerance for student weaknesses in mathematics, however, his comments could be harsh, even though not intended to be personal. He did not aim to make students feel good about themselves."
:"Dickson had a sudden death trial for his prospective doctoral students: he assigned a preliminary problem which was shorter than a dissertation problem, and if the student could solve it in three months, Dickson would agree to oversee the graduate student's work. If not the student had to look elsewhere for an advisor."
[
]
Work
Dickson had a major impact on American mathematics, especially abstract algebra
In mathematics, more specifically algebra, abstract algebra or modern algebra is the study of algebraic structures. Algebraic structures include groups, rings, fields, modules, vector spaces, lattices, and algebras over a field. The term ''a ...
. His mathematical output consists of 18 books and more than 250 papers. The ''Collected Mathematical Papers of Leonard Eugene Dickson'' fill six large volumes.
The algebraist
In 1901, Dickson published his first book ''Linear groups with an exposition of the Galois field theory'', a revision and expansion of his Ph.D. thesis. Teubner in Leipzig published the book, as there was no well-established American scientific publisher at the time. Dickson had already published 43 research papers in the preceding five years; all but seven on finite linear groups. Parshall (1991) described the book as follows:
:"Dickson presented a unified, complete, and general theory of the classical linear groups—not merely over the prime field
In mathematics, the characteristic of a ring , often denoted , is defined to be the smallest number of times one must use the ring's multiplicative identity (1) in a sum to get the additive identity (0). If this sum never reaches the additive iden ...
GF(''p'') as Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
had done—but over the general finite field
In mathematics, a finite field or Galois field (so-named in honor of Évariste Galois) is a field that contains a finite number of elements. As with any field, a finite field is a set on which the operations of multiplication, addition, subtr ...
GF(''pn''), and he did this against the backdrop of a well-developed theory of these underlying field
Field may refer to:
Expanses of open ground
* Field (agriculture), an area of land used for agricultural purposes
* Airfield, an aerodrome that lacks the infrastructure of an airport
* Battlefield
* Lawn, an area of mowed grass
* Meadow, a grass ...
s. ... his book represented the first systematic treatment of finite field
In mathematics, a finite field or Galois field (so-named in honor of Évariste Galois) is a field that contains a finite number of elements. As with any field, a finite field is a set on which the operations of multiplication, addition, subtr ...
s in the mathematical literature."
An appendix in this book lists the non-abelian simple groups then known having order less than 1 billion. He listed 53 of the 56 having order less than 1 million. The remaining three were found in 1960, 1965, and 1967.
Dickson worked on finite field
In mathematics, a finite field or Galois field (so-named in honor of Évariste Galois) is a field that contains a finite number of elements. As with any field, a finite field is a set on which the operations of multiplication, addition, subtr ...
s and extended the theory of linear associative algebra
In mathematics, an associative algebra ''A'' is an algebraic structure with compatible operations of addition, multiplication (assumed to be associative), and a scalar multiplication by elements in some field ''K''. The addition and multiplicat ...
s initiated by Joseph Wedderburn
Joseph Henry Maclagan Wedderburn FRSE FRS (2 February 1882 – 9 October 1948) was a Scottish mathematician, who taught at Princeton University for most of his career. A significant algebraist, he proved that a finite division algebra is a fie ...
and Cartan.
He started the study of modular invariants of a group In mathematics, a modular invariant of a group is an invariant of a finite group acting on a vector space of positive characteristic (usually dividing the order of the group). The study of modular invariants was originated in about 1914 by .
Dicks ...
.
In 1905, Wedderburn, then at Chicago on a Carnegie Fellowship, published a paper that included three claimed proofs of a theorem stating that all finite division algebra
In the field of mathematics called abstract algebra, a division algebra is, roughly speaking, an algebra over a field in which division, except by zero, is always possible.
Definitions
Formally, we start with a non-zero algebra ''D'' over a fie ...
s were commutative
In mathematics, a binary operation is commutative if changing the order of the operands does not change the result. It is a fundamental property of many binary operations, and many mathematical proofs depend on it. Most familiar as the name o ...
, now known as Wedderburn's theorem. The proofs all made clever use of the interplay between the additive group
An additive group is a group of which the group operation is to be thought of as ''addition'' in some sense. It is usually abelian, and typically written using the symbol + for its binary operation.
This terminology is widely used with structure ...
of a finite division algebra
In the field of mathematics called abstract algebra, a division algebra is, roughly speaking, an algebra over a field in which division, except by zero, is always possible.
Definitions
Formally, we start with a non-zero algebra ''D'' over a fie ...
''A'', and the multiplicative group
In mathematics and group theory, the term multiplicative group refers to one of the following concepts:
*the group under multiplication of the invertible elements of a field, ring, or other structure for which one of its operations is referred to ...
''A''* = ''A'' − . Karen Parshall
Karen Hunger Parshall (born 1955, Virginia; ''née'' Karen Virginia Hunger) is an American historian of mathematics. She is the Commonwealth Professor of History and Mathematics at the University of Virginia with a joint appointment in the Corcora ...
noted that the first of these three proofs had a gap not noticed at the time. Dickson also found a proof of this result but, believing Wedderburn's first proof to be correct, Dickson acknowledged Wedderburn's priority. But Dickson also noted that Wedderburn constructed his second and third proofs only after having seen Dickson's proof. She concluded that Dickson should be credited with the first correct proof.
Dickson's search for a counterexample to Wedderburn's theorem led him to investigate nonassociative algebras, and in a series of papers he found all possible three and four-dimensional (nonassociative) division algebra
In the field of mathematics called abstract algebra, a division algebra is, roughly speaking, an algebra over a field in which division, except by zero, is always possible.
Definitions
Formally, we start with a non-zero algebra ''D'' over a fie ...
s over a field
Field may refer to:
Expanses of open ground
* Field (agriculture), an area of land used for agricultural purposes
* Airfield, an aerodrome that lacks the infrastructure of an airport
* Battlefield
* Lawn, an area of mowed grass
* Meadow, a grass ...
.
In 1919 Dickson constructed Cayley numbers by a doubling process starting with quaternion
In mathematics, the quaternion number system extends the complex numbers. Quaternions were first described by the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton in 1843 and applied to mechanics in three-dimensional space. Hamilton defined a quatern ...
s . His method was extended to a doubling of to produce , and of to produce by A. A. Albert
Abraham Adrian Albert (November 9, 1905 – June 6, 1972) was an American mathematician. In 1939, he received the American Mathematical Society's Cole Prize in Algebra for his work on Riemann matrices. He is best known for his work on the ...
in 1922, and the procedure is known now as the Cayley–Dickson construction
In mathematics, the Cayley–Dickson construction, named after Arthur Cayley and Leonard Eugene Dickson, produces a sequence of algebras over the field of real numbers, each with twice the dimension of the previous one. The algebras produced by ...
of composition algebra
In mathematics, a composition algebra over a field is a not necessarily associative algebra over together with a nondegenerate quadratic form that satisfies
:N(xy) = N(x)N(y)
for all and in .
A composition algebra includes an involution c ...
s.
The number theorist
Dickson proved many interesting results 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 ...
, using results of Vinogradov
Vinogradov or Vinogradoff (russian: Виногра́дов) is a common Russian last name derived from the Russian word виноград (''vinograd'', meaning "grape" and виноградник ''vinogradnik'', meaning "vineyard"). Vinogradova (ru ...
to deduce the ideal Waring theorem in his investigations of additive number theory
Additive number theory is the subfield of number theory concerning the study of subsets of integers and their behavior under addition. More abstractly, the field of additive number theory includes the study of abelian groups and commutative semigr ...
. He proved the Waring's problem
In number theory, Waring's problem asks whether each natural number ''k'' has an associated positive integer ''s'' such that every natural number is the sum of at most ''s'' natural numbers raised to the power ''k''. For example, every natural num ...
for under the further condition of
:
independently of Subbayya Sivasankaranarayana Pillai
Subbayya Sivasankaranarayana Pillai (5 April 1901 – 31 August 1950) was an Indian mathematician specialising in number theory. His contribution to Waring's problem was described in 1950 by K. S. Chandrasekharan as "almost certainly his best ...
who proved it for ahead of him.
The three-volume ''History of the Theory of Numbers
''History of the Theory of Numbers'' is a three-volume work by L. E. Dickson summarizing work in number theory up to about 1920. The style is unusual in that Dickson mostly just lists results by various authors, with little further discussion. T ...
'' (1919–23) is still much consulted today, covering divisibility and primality, Diophantine analysis
In mathematics, a Diophantine equation is an equation, typically a polynomial equation in two or more unknowns with integer coefficients, such that the only solutions of interest are the integer ones. A linear Diophantine equation equates to a c ...
, and quadratic and higher forms. The work contains little interpretation and makes no attempt to contextualize the results being described, yet it contains essentially every significant number theoretic idea from the dawn of mathematics up to the 1920s except for quadratic reciprocity and higher reciprocity laws. A planned fourth volume on these topics was never written. A. A. Albert
Abraham Adrian Albert (November 9, 1905 – June 6, 1972) was an American mathematician. In 1939, he received the American Mathematical Society's Cole Prize in Algebra for his work on Riemann matrices. He is best known for his work on the ...
remarked that this three volume work "would be a life's work by itself for a more ordinary man."
Bibliography
* ()
* ()
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* 1926. ''Modern algebraic theories''
*1923, 1928. ''Algebraic Numbers''. Report with others for U. S. National Research Council.
*1929. ''Introduction to the Theory of Numbers''
*1930. ''Studies in the Theory of Numbers''
*1935. (with G. A. Bliss
Gilbert Ames Bliss, (9 May 1876 – 8 May 1951), was an American mathematician, known for his work on the calculus of variations.
Life
Bliss grew up in a Chicago family that eventually became affluent; in 1907, his father became president of the ...
) "Biographical Memoir of Eliakim Hastings Moore 1862–1932."
*1935. ''Researches on Waring's problem''
*1938. (with Hans Frederick Blichfeldt
Hans Frederick Blichfeldt (1873–1945) was a Danish-American mathematician at Stanford University, known for his contributions to group theory, the representation theory of finite groups, the geometry of numbers, sphere packing, and quadratic ...
and George Abram Miller
George Abram Miller (31 July 1863 – 10 February 1951) was an early group theorist.
At age 17 Miller began school-teaching to raise funds for higher education. In 1882 he entered Franklin and Marshall Academy, and progressed to Muhlenberg Colle ...
) ''Theory and Applications of Finite Groups''
*1938. ''Algebras And Their Arithmetics'' (1st edn. in 1923)
*1939. ''Modern Elementary Theory of Numbers''
*1939. ''New First Course in the Theory of Equations''
*''Plane Trigonometry With Practical Applications''
*
Notes
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dickson, Leonard Eugene
1874 births
1954 deaths
19th-century American mathematicians
20th-century American mathematicians
Algebraists
Number theorists
University of Texas at Austin College of Natural Sciences alumni
University of Chicago alumni
University of Texas at Austin faculty
University of Chicago faculty
American historians of mathematics
Presidents of the American Mathematical Society
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
People from Independence, Iowa
People from Cleburne, Texas
Mathematicians from Iowa
The American Mathematical Monthly editors