Robert Brown (Robby) Gardner (February 27, 1939 – May 5, 1998) 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 ...

who worked on differential geometry, a field in which he obtained several novel results. He was the author and co-author of three influential books, produced more than fifty papers, eighteen masters students and thirteen Ph.D students.Curriculum vitae of Robert Gardner
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/ref> His 1991 book, ''Exterior Differential Systems'', coauthored with R. Bryant, S. S. Chern, H. Goldschmidt, and P. Griffiths, is the standard reference for the subject. Robert Bryant, Duke University's Professor of Mathematics and the 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, ...

(2015-2017) was a student of his. He is better known in the United States for his improvements and popularization of the methods of

Élie Cartan Élie Joseph Cartan (; 9 April 1869 – 6 May 1951) was an influential French mathematician who did fundamental work in the theory of Lie groups, differential systems (coordinate-free geometric formulation of PDEs), and differential geometr ...

(most notably, Cartan's equivalence method, an

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...

ic procedure for determining if two geometric shapes are different). The works of Cartan were hard to grasp for most students, and Gardner worked to explain them in more accessible ways.

Biography

He was born on February 27, 1939. Gardner graduated from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 1959, earned a master's degree from

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 1960, and completed his PhD in 1965 from 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 ...

, under the orientation of

Shiing-Shen Chern Shiing-Shen Chern (; , ; October 28, 1911 – December 3, 2004) was a Chinese-American mathematician and poet. He made fundamental contributions to differential geometry and topology. He has been called the "father of modern differential geome ...

. After this, he worked at many places, including becoming a member of the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...

, and some years as assistant professor at

. He joined the faculty of the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 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 States ...

in 1971 and became a full professor there in 1977. He died on May 5, 1998.

Legacy

In his memory, the UNC Mathematics Department created the Robert Brown Gardner Memorial Fund, devoted to supporting graduate student activities.

Selected publications

*''The Method of Equivalence and Its Applications'' *R. Bryant, S.-S. Chern, R. B. Gardner, H. Goldschmidt, P. Griffiths, ''Exterior Differential Systems'', MSRI Publications, Springer, 1990 *''Lectures on Exterior Algebras Over Commutative Rings'' *''Differential Geometric Methods in Partial Differential Equations''

Biography

Legacy

Selected publications

References

Further reading