right Virgil Snyder (1869,

Dixon, Iowa Dixon is a city in Scott County, Iowa, United States. The population was 202 at the time of the 2020 census. Geography Dixon is located at (41.741464, −90.782891). According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of ...

– 1950) was an American mathematician, specializing in

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics, classically studying zeros of multivariate polynomials. Modern algebraic geometry is based on the use of abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, for solving geometrical ...

. In 1886 Snyder matriculated at

Iowa State College Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...

and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1889. He attended

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

as a graduate student from 1890 to 1892, leaving to study mathematics in Germany on an Erastus W. Brooks fellowship. In 1895 he received a doctorate from the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

under

Felix Klein Christian Felix Klein (; 25 April 1849 – 22 June 1925) was a German mathematician and mathematics educator, known for his work with group theory, complex analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the associations between geometry and group ...

. In 1895 Snyder returned to Cornell as an instructor, becoming an assistant professor in 1905 and a full professor in 1910. In 1938 he retired as professor emeritus, having supervised 39 doctoral students, 13 of whom were women. Of these students, perhaps the most well known is C. L. E. Moore. Snyder served as 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, ...

for a two-year term in 1927 and 1928. He was an Invited Speaker of the

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the Nevanlinna Prize (to be rename ...

in 1928 at

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

, in 1932 at Zurich, and in 1936 at

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

. Snyder did research on configurations of

ruled surface In geometry, a surface is ruled (also called a scroll) if through every point of there is a straight line that lies on . Examples include the plane, the lateral surface of a cylinder or cone, a conical surface with elliptical directrix, the ...

s and

Cremona Cremona (, also ; ; lmo, label= Cremunés, Cremùna; egl, Carmona) is a city and ''comune'' in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po river in the middle of the ''Pianura Padana'' ( Po Valley). It is the capital of th ...

and birational transformations.

Selected works

*with Charles H. Sisam:

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Snyder, Virgil 19th-century American mathematicians 20th-century American mathematicians Algebraic geometers Cornell University faculty Iowa State University alumni Presidents of the American Mathematical Society 1869 births 1950 deaths Mathematicians from Iowa