Earle Raymond Hedrick (September 27, 1876 – February 3, 1943), was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

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 ...

and a vice-president of 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, ...

Education and career

Hedrick was born in Union City,

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

. After undergraduate work at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, he obtained a Master of Arts from

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 ...

. With a Parker fellowship, he went to Europe and obtained his PhD from

Göttingen University Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The orig ...

in Germany under the supervision of

David Hilbert David Hilbert (; ; 23 January 1862 – 14 February 1943) was a German mathematician, one of the most influential mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many a ...

in 1901. He then spent several months at the

École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

in France, where he became acquainted with

Édouard Goursat Édouard Jean-Baptiste Goursat (21 May 1858 – 25 November 1936) was a French mathematician, now remembered principally as an expositor for his ''Cours d'analyse mathématique'', which appeared in the first decade of the twentieth century. It se ...

Jacques Hadamard Jacques Salomon Hadamard (; 8 December 1865 – 17 October 1963) was a French mathematician who made major contributions in number theory, complex analysis, differential geometry and partial differential equations. Biography The son of a teac ...

Jules Tannery Jules Tannery (24 March 1848 – 11 December 1910) was a French mathematician, who notably studied under Charles Hermite and was the PhD advisor of Jacques Hadamard. Tannery's theorem on interchange of limits and series is named after him. He w ...

Émile Picard Charles Émile Picard (; 24 July 1856 – 11 December 1941) was a French mathematician. He was elected the fifteenth member to occupy seat 1 of the Académie française in 1924. Life He was born in Paris on 24 July 1856 and educated there at th ...

and

Paul Émile Appell :''M. P. Appell is the same person: it stands for Monsieur Paul Appell''. Paul Émile Appell (27 September 1855, in Strasbourg – 24 October 1930, in Paris) was a French mathematician and Rector of the University of Paris. Appell polynomials an ...

, before becoming an instructor at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. In 1903, he became professor at 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 ...

. He moved in 1920 to the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

to become head of the department of mathematics. In 1933, he was giving the first graduate lecture on mathematics at UCLA. He became provost and vice-president of the

in 1937. He humorously called his appointment ''The Accident'', and told jokingly after this event, "I no longer have any intellectual interests —I just sit and talk to people." He played in fact a very important role in making of the University of California a leading institution. He retired from the UCLA faculty in 1942 and accepted a visiting professorship at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

. Soon after the beginning of this new appointment, he suffered a lung infection. He died at the

Rhode Island Hospital Rhode Island Hospital is a private, not-for-profit hospital located in the Upper South Providence neighborhood in Providence, Rhode Island. It is the largest academic medical center in the region, affiliated with Brown University since 1959. As a ...

Providence Providence often refers to: * Providentia, the divine personification of foresight in ancient Roman religion * Divine providence, divinely ordained events and outcomes in Christianity * Providence, Rhode Island, the capital of Rhode Island in the ...

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

. Two UCLA residence halls have been named after him: Hedrick Hall in 1963, and Hedrick Summit in 2005.

Research

Earle Raymond Hedrick worked on

partial differential equations In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which imposes relations between the various partial derivatives of a multivariable function. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" to be solved for, similarly to ...

and on the theory of non-analytic functions of complex variables. He also did work in applied mathematics, in particular on a generalization of

Hooke's law In physics, Hooke's law is an empirical law which states that the force () needed to extend or compress a spring (device), spring by some distance () Proportionality (mathematics)#Direct_proportionality, scales linearly with respect to that ...

and on transmission of heat in steam boilers. With

Oliver Dimon Kellogg Oliver Dimon Kellogg (10 July 1878 – 27 August 1932) was an American mathematician. His father, Day Otis Kellogg, was a professor of literature at the University of Kansas and editor of the American edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. ...

he authored a text on the applications of calculus to mechanics.

Pedagogical activity

Earle Raymond Hedrick translated in English the ''Cours d'Analyse'' of Édouard Goursat providing American students with an up-to-date (for the beginning of the twentieth century) textbook of analysis. He also translated the first part of the textbook of

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 ...

''Elementarmathematik vom höheren Standpunkte aus'' in English. His activity in the Mathematical Association of America and in the National Council of Mathematics Teachers had also an important impact on mathematics education in the United States. He also authored or co-authored various textbooks of mathematics, and was general editor of the Series of Mathematical Texts which comprises about 40 volumes.

Administrative activities

Earle Raymond Hedrick was involved in the creation 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 ...

in 1916 and was its first president.MAA presidents: Earle Raymond Hedrick
/ref> The Earle Raymond Hedrick lectures were established by the Mathematical Association in America in his honor. He also served as vice-president of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

, and played an important role at 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, ...

both as president (1929-1930) and as editor of the Bulletin of the Americal Mathematical Society, a role he assumed during 17 years. He also worked as editor for the Engineering Science Series.

Professional societies

Besides the societies where Earl Raymond Hedrick had important administrative activities, he was also a member of: * Society for the Promotion of Electrical Engineering *

American Society of Mechanical Engineers The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing ...

American Institute of Electrical Engineers The American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) was a United States-based organization of electrical engineers that existed from 1884 through 1962. On January 1, 1963, it merged with the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) to form the Instit ...

Textbooks

*
Applications of the calculus to mechanics
' with

(Boston: Ginn, 1909) *
Solid Geometry
' with Walter Burton Ford and Charles Ammerman (New York: Macmillan, 1913) *
Analytic geometry and principles of algebra
' with Alexander Ziwet (New York: Macmillan, 1913) *
Constructive geometry; exercises in elementary geometric drawing
' (New York : Macmillan, 1916) *
Logarithmic and trigonometric tables
' (New York : Macmillan, 1920)

References

*
University of California: In Memoriam, Earle Raymond Hedrick, Mathematics: Los Angeles and Systemwide

* ttps://www.ams.org/ams/20-hedrick.html AMS Presidents: A Timeline Earl Raymond Hedrick
E. R. Hedrick collection
Archives of American Mathematics, Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin * Paul Ehrlic
Kellogg, Bliss, Hedrick Mizzou Math Pioneers
* Paul Ehrlic

* Virgil Snyder,
Earle Raymond Hedrick
', Science 97, 214 (1943) * Virgil Snyder,
Earle Raymond Hedrick—In memoriam
', Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 49, 345 (1943). * W. B. Ford ''Earle Raymond Hedrick'' The American Mathematical Monthly, 50, 409 (1943). {{DEFAULTSORT:Hedrick, Earle Raymond 20th-century American mathematicians 1876 births 1943 deaths Harvard University alumni University of Michigan alumni Presidents of the Mathematical Association of America Presidents of the American Mathematical Society Leaders of the University of California, Los Angeles People from Union City, Indiana Mathematicians from Indiana Mathematicians from Missouri