Percey F. Smith

Percey Franklyn Smith (21 August 1867 – 1956) was an American mathematician and professor of mathematics at Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University.^[1][2]

Smith was born in Nyack, New York. He studied mathematics at Sheffield Scientific School of Yale college, finishing the regular course in 1888 and receiving the Doctor of Philosophy in 1891.^[1] Starting in 1888 he was instructor for mathematics in Yale until 1894, followed by academic studies in Germany and France^[1] at the universities of Göttingen, Berlin, Paris.^[3] After returning to Yale in 1896 he was assistant professor of mathematics until 1900, then professor until 1936.^[4]

He wrote several papers related to Lie sphere geometry,^{[P 1][P 2][P 3][P 4]} and is the author of several textbooks such as The elements of analytic geometry (1904), New analytic geometry (1912), Theoretical mechanics (1910).^{[P 5]}

The title "Percey F. Smith Professor of Mathematics" is still used in Yale.^[5] He was a member of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Publications (selection)

1. ↑ Smith, Percey F. (1900). "On a Transformation of Laguerre". Annals of Mathematics. 1: 153–172. doi:10.2307/1967282. 
2. ↑ Smith, Percey F. (1900). "On Surfaces Enveloped by Spheres Belonging to a Linear Spherical Complex". Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. 1: 371–390. doi:10.2307/1986361. 
3. ↑ Smith, Percey F. (1901). "On Sophus Lie's Representation of Imaginaries in Plane Geometry". Annals of Mathematics. 3: 166–179. doi:10.2307/1967644. 
4. ↑ Smith, Percey F. (1901). "Geometry Within a Linear Spherical Complex". Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. 2: 235–248. doi:10.1090/s0002-9947-1901-1500566-6. MR 1500566. 
5. ↑ Works by Percey F. Smith at Open Library

References

1. 1 2 3 Chamberlain, Joshua L., ed. (1899). "Smith, Percey Franklyn". Universities and Their Sons: History, Influence and Characteristics of American Universities, With Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Alumni and Recipients of Honorary Degrees. Bosoton: R. Herndon Company. pp. 469–470. 
2. ↑ Harold L. Dorwart (1989). "Mathematics and Yale in the nineteen twenties". In Peter L. Duren; Richard Askey; Uta C. Merzbach. A Century of Mathematics in America. American Mathematical Soc. pp. 87–97. ISBN 0821801309. 
3. ↑ Dorwart, p. 89
4. ↑ Dorwart, pp. 91–92.
5. ↑ Van Ha Vu is appointed the Percey F. Smith Professorship of Mathematics