:''This is about early- and mid-20th-century mathematician. For his mathematician son, active from the mid-20th century, see

L. R. Ford Jr. Lester Randolph Ford Jr. (September 23, 1927 – February 26, 2017) was an American mathematician specializing in network flow problems. He was the son of mathematician Lester R. Ford Sr. Ford's paper with D. R. Fulkerson on the maximum flow p ...

'' Lester Randolph Ford Sr. (October 25, 1886 – November 11, 1967) was an American mathematician, editor of 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 ...

'' from 1942 to 1946, and president 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 ...

from 1947 to 1948.

Ford circle In mathematics, a Ford circle is a circle with center at (p/q,1/(2q^2)) and radius 1/(2q^2), where p/q is an irreducible fraction, i.e. p and q are coprime integers. Each Ford circle is tangent to the horizontal axis y=0, and any two Ford circles ...

s are named after him. He is the father of

Ford's first degree, Bachelor of Pedagogy, was from a

normal school A normal school or normal college is an institution created to Teacher education, train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high s ...

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

. He then attended the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

in Columbia, graduating with a

B. A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in 1911. For graduate work he went to

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 ...

in 1912 and 13. Ford was then called to

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, where in 1914 he was instructor of mathematics at

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

. Games of

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

on campus gave Ford some social contact and reputation. In 1915 Ford published ''An Introduction to the Theory of Automorphic Functions'' as Edinburgh Mathematical Tract # 6. Returning to Harvard in 1917, Ford was awarded his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

for the thesis ''Rational Approximations to an Irrational Complex Number'', under the supervision of

Maxime Bôcher Maxime Bôcher (August 28, 1867 – September 12, 1918) was an American mathematician who published about 100 papers on differential equations, series, and algebra. He also wrote elementary texts such as ''Trigonometry'' and ''Analytic Geometry''. ...

. Later Ford joined the faculty of

Rice Institute The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is an international agricultural research and training organization with its headquarters in Los Baños, Laguna, in the Philippines, and offices in seventeen countries. IRRI is known for its work ...

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

. There he married Marguerite Eleanor John on 15 June 1924. Moving north to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, Ford taught at

Armour Institute Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has prog ...

, soon to become Illinois Institute of Technology. From there he went to the editorship of

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 ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Ford was president of the

for 1947,8. In 1964, the MAA recognised his contribution to mathematics by establishing the Lester R. Ford Awards for authors of articles of expository excellence published in ''

'' or ''

Mathematics Magazine ''Mathematics Magazine'' is a refereed bimonthly publication of the Mathematical Association of America. Its intended audience is teachers of collegiate mathematics, especially at the junior/senior level, and their students. It is explicitly a j ...

''. (The prize is now known as the Paul R. Halmos – Lester R. Ford Award.Paul R. Halmos - Lester R. Ford Awards
on the website of the Mathematical Association of America.) His doctoral students include Edwin Beckenbach.

Publications

* 1915
An Introduction to the Theory of Automorphic Functions
via

Internet Archive 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, ...

* 1919: ''Elementary Mathematics for Field Artillery'' * 1929: * 1928
Introduction to Differential Equations
via

HathiTrust HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally ...

* 1933: ''Differential Equations'', second edition 1955 * 1963: (with his son
Calculus

McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referenc ...

via HathiTrust

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ford, L. R. 20th-century American mathematicians Presidents of the Mathematical Association of America 1886 births 1967 deaths Harvard University alumni Rice University faculty University of Missouri alumni American textbook writers The American Mathematical Monthly editors