Tracy Yerkes Thomas (1899–1983) was an American mathematician.
Biography
Thomas received his A.B. in 1921 from
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a private research university in Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranked among the top universit ...
and then his A.M. in 1922 and Ph.D. in 1923 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 n ...
. For the academic year 1923–1924 he was a National Research Fellow in Physics at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
and in the academic year 1924–1925 a postdoc in
Zürich
, neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon
, twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco
Zürich () i ...
. For the academic year 1925–1926 he was a National Research Fellow in Mathematics at
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 high ...
and then Princeton University, where he was on the mathematics faculty from 1926 to 1938. From 1938 to 1944 he was a professor at the
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...
. From 1944 to 1969 he was a professor at
Indiana University
Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana.
Campuses
Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI.
* Indiana Univers ...
. In 1952, he was one of the founders of the ''Journal of Rational Mechanics and Analysis'', which is now known as the ''
Indiana University Mathematics Journal
The ''Indiana University Mathematics Journal'' is a journal of mathematics published by Indiana University. Its first volume was published in 1952, under the name ''Journal of Rational Mechanics and Analysis'' and edited by Zachery D. Paden and Cl ...
''.
Thomas was in 1941 elected a member of 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 Nat ...
.
Upon his death, he was survived by his wife, Virginia Rowland Thomas, and son, Tracy Alexander Thomas.
Selected publications
Articles
The Einstein Equations of the Gravitational Field for an Arbitrary Distribution of Matter Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 9, no. 8 (1923): 275–278.
*with Oswald Veblen: The geometry of paths. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 25 (1923) 551–608.
*with Oswald Veblen: Extensions of relative tensors. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 26 (1924) 373–377.
*Note on the projective geometry of paths. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 31 (1925) 318–322.
On the projective and equi-projective geometries of paths Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 11, no. 4 (1925): 199–203.
On conformal geometry Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 12, no. 5 (1926): 352–359.
*with Jack Levine: On a class of existence theorems in differential geometry. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 40 (1934) 721–728.
*Algebraic characterizations in complex differential geometry. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 38 (1935) 501–514.
*On the metric representations of affinely connected spaces. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 42 (1936) 77–78.
*On the singular point locus in the theory of fields of parallel vectors. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 45 (1939) 436–441.
*Imbedding theorems in differential geometry. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 45 (1939) Part 1:841–850.
On the uniform convergence of the solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 29, no. 8 (1943): 243–246.
*Algebraic determination of the second fundamental form of a surface by its mean curvature. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 51 (1945) Part 1:390–399.
The fundamental theorem on quadratic first integrals Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 32, no. 1 (1946): 10–15.
Combined elastic and Prandtl-Reuss stress-strain relations Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 41, no. 10 (1955): 720–726.
On the stress-strain relations for cubic crystals Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 55, no. 2 (1966): 235–239.
Books
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Tracy Yerkes
20th-century American mathematicians
Rice University alumni
Princeton University alumni
1899 births
1983 deaths
Princeton University faculty
University of California, Los Angeles faculty
Indiana University faculty
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences