Eric Temple Bell (7 February 1883 – 21 December 1960) was a Scottish-born

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

science fiction writer This is a list of noted science-fiction authors (in alphabetical order): A *Dafydd ab Hugh (born 1960) * Alexander Abasheli (1884–1954) * Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838–1926) * Kōbō Abe (1924–1993) * Robert Abernathy (1924–1990) *Dan ...

who lived in the United States for most of his life. He published non-fiction using his given name and fiction as John Taine.

Early life and education

Eric Temple Bell was born in

Peterhead Peterhead (; gd, Ceann Phàdraig, sco, Peterheid ) is a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is Aberdeenshire's biggest settlement (the city of Aberdeen itself not being a part of the district), with a population of 18,537 at the 2011 Census. ...

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), a ...

, Scotland as third of three children to Helen Jane Lyall and James Bell Jr. His father, a

factor Factor, a Latin word meaning "who/which acts", may refer to: Commerce * Factor (agent), a person who acts for, notably a mercantile and colonial agent * Factor (Scotland), a person or firm managing a Scottish estate * Factors of production, suc ...

, relocated to

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popu ...

, in 1884, when Eric was fifteen months old. After his father died on 4 January 1896, the family returned to

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst t ...

, England. Bell was educated at

Bedford Modern School Bedford Modern School (often called BMS) is a Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference independent school in Bedford, England. The school has its origins in The Harpur Trust, born from the endowments left by Sir William Harpur in the six ...

, where his teacher Edward Mann Langley inspired him to continue the study of mathematics. Bell returned to the United States, by way of

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

, in 1902. He received degrees from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

(1904), the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seatt ...

(1908), and

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 ...

(1912) (where he was a student of Cassius Jackson Keyser).

Career

Bell was part of the faculty first at the University of Washington and later at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

. While at the University of Washington, he taught

Howard P. Robertson Howard Percy "Bob" Robertson (January 27, 1903 – August 26, 1961) was an American mathematician and physicist known for contributions related to physical cosmology and the uncertainty principle. He was Professor of Mathematical Physics at the C ...

and encouraged him to enroll at Cal Tech for his doctoral studies. Bell researched

number theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said, "Ma ...

; see in particular Bell series. He attempted—not altogether successfully—to make the traditional

umbral calculus In mathematics before the 1970s, the term umbral calculus referred to the surprising similarity between seemingly unrelated polynomial equations and certain "shadowy" techniques used to "prove" them. These techniques were introduced by John Blis ...

(understood at that time to be the same thing as the "symbolic method" of Blissard) logically rigorous. He also did much work using

generating function In mathematics, a generating function is a way of encoding an infinite sequence of numbers () by treating them as the coefficients of a formal power series. This series is called the generating function of the sequence. Unlike an ordinary serie ...

s, treated as formal

power series In mathematics, a power series (in one variable) is an infinite series of the form \sum_^\infty a_n \left(x - c\right)^n = a_0 + a_1 (x - c) + a_2 (x - c)^2 + \dots where ''an'' represents the coefficient of the ''n''th term and ''c'' is a con ...

, without concern for

convergence Convergence may refer to: Arts and media Literature *''Convergence'' (book series), edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen *Convergence (comics), "Convergence" (comics), two separate story lines published by DC Comics: **A four-part crossover storyline that ...

. He is the eponym of the

Bell polynomials In combinatorial mathematics, the Bell polynomials, named in honor of Eric Temple Bell, are used in the study of set partitions. They are related to Stirling and Bell numbers. They also occur in many applications, such as in the Faà di Bruno ...

and the

Bell number In combinatorial mathematics, the Bell numbers count the possible partitions of a set. These numbers have been studied by mathematicians since the 19th century, and their roots go back to medieval Japan. In an example of Stigler's law of eponymy ...

s of

combinatorics Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and an end in obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many a ...

. In 1924 Bell was awarded the

Bôcher Memorial Prize The Bôcher Memorial Prize was founded by the American Mathematical Society in 1923 in memory of Maxime Bôcher with an initial endowment of $1,450 (contributed by members of that society). It is awarded every three years (formerly every five year ...

for his work in

mathematical analysis Analysis is the branch of mathematics dealing with continuous functions, limits, and related theories, such as differentiation, integration, measure, infinite sequences, series, and analytic functions. These theories are usually studied ...

. In 1927, he was elected to 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 ...

. He died in 1960 in

Watsonville, California Watsonville is a city in Santa Cruz County, California, located in the Monterey Bay Area of the Central Coast of California. The population was 52,590 according to the 2020 census. Predominantly Latino and Democratic, Watsonville is a self ...

Work

Fiction and poetry

During the early 1920s, Bell wrote several long poems. He also wrote several

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

novels, which independently invented some of the earliest devices and ideas of science fiction. Only the novel ''The Purple Sapphire'' was published at the time, using the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individu ...

John Taine; this was before Hugo Gernsback and the ''genre'' publication of science fiction. His novels were published later, both in book form and serialised in magazines. Basil Davenport, writing in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', described Taine as "one of the first real scientists to write science-fiction hodid much to bring it out of the interplanetary cops-and-robbers stage." But he concluded that " aineis sadly lacking as a novelist, in style and especially in characterization."

Writing about mathematics

Bell wrote a book of biographical essays titled '' Men of Mathematics'' (one chapter of which was the first popular account of the 19th century mathematician

Sofia Kovalevskaya Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (russian: link=no, Софья Васильевна Ковалевская), born Korvin-Krukovskaya ( – 10 February 1891), was a Russian mathematician who made noteworthy contributions to analysis, partial differen ...

), which is still in print. He originally wrote it under the title ''The Lives of Mathematicians'', but the publishers,

Simon and Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest pub ...

, cut about a third of it (125,000 words), and, in order to tie in with their book ''Men of Art'' (by

Thomas Craven Thomas Craven (January 6, 1888 – February 27, 1969) was an American author, critic and lecturer, who promoted the work of American Regionalist painters, Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood, among others. He was known for hi ...

), gave it the title ''Men of Mathematics'' which he did not like.Reid, pp. 276–277 The book inspired notable mathematicians including

Julia Robinson Julia Hall Bowman Robinson (December 8, 1919July 30, 1985) was an American mathematician noted for her contributions to the fields of computability theory and computational complexity theory—most notably in decision problems. Her work on Hilber ...

John Forbes Nash, Jr. John Forbes Nash Jr. (June 13, 1928 – May 23, 2015) was an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to game theory, real algebraic geometry, differential geometry, and partial differential equations. Nash and fellow game ...

, and

Andrew Wiles Sir Andrew John Wiles (born 11 April 1953) is an English mathematician and a Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Oxford, specializing in number theory. He is best known for proving Fermat's Last Theorem, for which he was awa ...

to begin a career in mathematics. However, historians of mathematics have disputed the accuracy of much of Bell's history. In fact, Bell does not distinguish carefully between anecdote and history. He has been much criticized for romanticizing

Évariste Galois Évariste Galois (; ; 25 October 1811 – 31 May 1832) was a French mathematician and political activist. While still in his teens, he was able to determine a necessary and sufficient condition for a polynomial to be solvable by radical ...

. For example: " . T.Bell's account f Galois's life by far the most famous, is also the most fictitious." His treatment of

Georg Cantor Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor ( , ; – January 6, 1918) was a German mathematician. He played a pivotal role in the creation of set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor established the importance o ...

, which reduced Cantor's relationships with his father and with

Leopold Kronecker Leopold Kronecker (; 7 December 1823 – 29 December 1891) was a German mathematician who worked on number theory, algebra and logic. He criticized Georg Cantor's work on set theory, and was quoted by as having said, "'" ("God made the integers, ...

to stereotypes, has been criticized even more severely. While this book was under printing, he also wrote and had published another book, ''The Handmaiden of the Sciences''. Bell's later book ''Development of Mathematics'' has been less famous, but his biographer Constance Reid finds it has fewer weaknesses. His book on

Fermat's Last Theorem In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three positive integers , , and satisfy the equation for any integer value of greater than 2. The cases and have been ...

, ''The Last Problem'', was published the year after his death and is a hybrid of social history and the history of mathematics. It inspired mathematician

to solve the problem.

Non-fiction books

* ''An Arithmetical Theory of Certain Numerical Functions'', Seattle Washington, The University, 1915, 50p
PDF/DjVu copy
from

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, ...

.
'' The Cyclotomic Quinary Quintic''
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, The New Era Printing Company, 1912, 97p. * ''Algebraic Arithmetic'', New York, American Mathematical Society, 1927, 180p. * ''Debunking Science'', Seattle, University of Washington book store, 1930, 40p.
''The Queen of the Sciences''
Stechert, 1931, 138p. * ''Numerology'', Baltimore: The Williams & Wilkins Co., 1933, 187p. ** Reprint: Westport, CT:

Hyperion Press Hyperion Press was an American publishing company, based in Westport, Connecticut. In the 1970s, it published science fiction and science fiction studies including reissues of several books first published by World Publ. Co. of Cleveland and cla ...

, 1979, , 187p. – "Reprint of the ed. published by Century Co., New York" * ''The Search for Truth'', Baltimore, Reynal and Hitchcock, 1934, 279p. ** Reprint: Williams and Wilkins Co, 1935
''The Handmaiden of the Sciences''

Williams & Wilkins Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) is an American imprint of the American Dutch publishing conglomerate Wolters Kluwer. It was established by the acquisition of Williams & Wilkins and its merger with J.B. Lippincott Company in 1998. Under the L ...

, 1937, 216p. * ''Man and His Lifebelts'', New York, Reynal & Hitchcock, 1938, 340p. ** Reprint: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1935, 2nd printing 1946 ** Reprint: Kessinger Publishing, 2005 * '' Men of Mathematics'', New York, Simon & Schuster, 1937, 592p. ** Reprint: Touchstone (Simon & Schuster paperback), 1986. * ''The Development of Mathematics'', New York, McGraw–Hill, 1940, 637p. **Second Edition: New York, McGraw–Hill, 1945, 637p. **Reprint: Dover Publications, 1992 * ''The Magic of Numbers'', Whittlesey House, 1946, 418p. **Reprint: New York,

Dover Publications Dover Publications, also known as Dover Books, is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward and Blanche Cirker. It primarily reissues books that are out of print from their original publishers. These are often, but not always, books ...

, 1991, , 418p. **Reprint: Sacred Science Institute, 2006 * ''Mathematics: Queen and Servant of Science'',

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 refere ...

, 1951, 437p. * ''The Last Problem'', New York,

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publi ...

, 1961, 308p. ** Reprint:

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 ...

, 1990, , 326p.

Scholarly papers

* "Arithmetical paraphrases". In: ''Transactions of the American Mathematical Society'' 22, 1921
pp. 1–30
an
198–219

"Arithmetical equivalents for a remarkable identity between theta functions"
In: ''Mathematische Zeitschrift'' 13, 1922, pp. 146–152
"Existence theorems on the numbers of representations of odd integers as sums of 4''t'' + 2 squares"
In: ''Crelles Journal'' 163, 1930, pp. 65–70 * "Exponential numbers". In: ''The American Mathematical Monthly'' 41, 1934, pp. 411–419

Novels

* ''The Purple Sapphire'' (1924) * ''The Gold Tooth'' (1927) * ''Quayle's Invention'' (1927) * '' Green Fire'' (1928) * ''The Greatest Adventure'' (1929) * '' The Iron Star'' (1930) * ''The White Lily'' (1930) * '' The Time Stream'' (1931) * '' Seeds of Life'' (1931) * '' Before the Dawn'' (1934) * ''Tomorrow'' (1939) * '' The Forbidden Garden'' (1947) * '' The Cosmic Geoids and One Other'' (1949) * '' The Crystal Horde'' (1952) * '' G.O.G. 666'' (1954)

Poetry

* ''The Singer'' (1916)

References

Sources

* Reid, Constance (1993). ''The Search for E. T. Bell, Also Known as John Taine''. Washington, DC: Mathematical Association of America. x + 372 pp. . . * Rothman, T. (1982). "Genius and biographers: the fictionalization of Evariste Galois". ''American Mathematics Monthly'' 89, no. 2, 84–106.

External links

Biographical sketch by Constance Reid
* * *

* * (distinct from Bell) * (distinct from Taine)
Author profile
in the database zbMATH {{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Eric Temple 1883 births 1960 deaths People educated at Bedford Modern School 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American mathematicians American science fiction writers Scottish science fiction writers American historians of mathematics Scottish expatriates in the United States Scottish mathematicians Combinatorialists Mathematics popularizers Presidents of the Mathematical Association of America 20th-century Scottish writers American male novelists Stanford University alumni University of Washington alumni Columbia University alumni University of Washington faculty California Institute of Technology faculty People from Peterhead People from Watsonville, California Scottish novelists Novelists from California Novelists from Washington (state) Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences