Arthur Byron Coble | |
|---|---|
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| Born | (1878-11-03)November 3, 1878 |
| Died | December 8, 1966(1966-12-08) (aged 88) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Gettysburg College Johns Hopkins University |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematician |
| Institutions | Johns Hopkins University University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| Doctoral advisor | Frank Morley |
| Doctoral students | |
Arthur Byron Coble (November 3, 1878 – December 8, 1966) was an American mathematician. He did research onfinite geometries and thegroup theory related to them,Cremona transformations associated with theGalois theory of equations, and the relations betweenhyperelliptictheta functions, irrational binary invariants, the Weddle surface and theKummer surface. He was President of theAmerican Mathematical Society from 1933 to 1934.
Arthur Coble was born on November 3, 1878, inWilliamstown, Pennsylvania. His mother Emma was a schoolteacher. When Coble was born, his father Ruben was the manager of a store. Later, he became president of a bank. Coble's parents belonged to Evangelical Lutheran Church. Coble was brought up strictly as an Evangelical Lutheran; however, he rejected this Church when he reached adulthood.[1]
Coble enteredGettysburg College in 1893, and completed hisA.B. in 1897. He spent a year as a public school teacher. He enteredJohns Hopkins University in 1898 to pursue his graduate studies. He completed his Ph.D. from the university in 1902. HisPh.D. thesis wasThe Relation of the Quartic Curve to Conics. His thesis supervisor was English-born mathematicianFrank Morley.[1] Later, Coble recalled how Morley made it "a cardinal point to have on hand a sufficient variety of thesis problems to accommodate particular tastes and capacities."[2]
In 1902, Coble became an instructor in mathematics at theUniversity of Missouri. One year later, in 1903, he was appointed to Johns Hopkins University as Morley's research assistant. In 1903, he published his doctoral dissertation asThe quartic curve as related to conics in theTransactions of the American Mathematical Society and took up the research assistant position inBaltimore, Maryland. In 1902, American businessmanAndrew Carnegie founded theCarnegie Institution of Washington. The research of Coble and Morley were one of the first pieces of research the Institution supported. The funding of the Institute was generous enough to allow Coble to use the grant to travel abroad. He traveled toGermany where he studied at Greifswald University and theUniversity of Bonn. He wanted to work withEduard Study, who was well known to mathematicians at Johns Hopkins University because he had taught there in 1893.[1]
Coble returned to the United States for the start of the 1904-05 session. He was appointed an instructor in mathematics at Johns Hopkins University.
Coble married Abby Walker Adams Whitney in 1905. They had four children.
Coble was promoted to associate professor at Johns Hopkins University in 1909. He left Johns Hopkins after he was offered a full professorship at theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 1918. He remained at Illinois for the rest of his career. He was a visiting professor at theUniversity of Chicago in 1919 and was at Johns Hopkins University in 1927–28. He became head of the Department of Mathematics at the UIUC in 1934 and he held that position until his retirement in 1947.[1] During these years, Coble served on many university and college committees, including eleven years on the University Council and eight years on the Executive Committee of theUIUC College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.[3]
Coble was elected to the United StatesNational Academy of Sciences in 1924 and theAmerican Philosophical Society in 1939.[4][5]
Coble was active with theAmerican Mathematical Society (AMS) from 1912 to 1940.[3] He was vice-president of the AMS in 1917. From 1920 to 1925, he edited theTransactions of the American Mathematical Society. He also was involved with editing theAmerican Journal of Mathematics over many years between 1918 and 1933. From 1933 to 1934, he was President of the AMS.[6] At that time, the AMS was in some financial difficulties. Coble dealt with the problem effectively.[1]
By the time he retired in 1947 his health was already deteriorating due to Parkinson's disease. After his retirement, he accepted a one-year post atHaverford College but after teaching for one semester he resigned due to poor health. In 1956, he was involved in a car crash. Because of that crash, he was unable to walk without assistance. He then moved toLykens, Pennsylvania, and spent his final ten years of his life there. He died on December 8, 1966, in a hospital inHarrisburg, Pennsylvania.[1]
Early mathematical research papers written by Coble when he was teaching at Johns Hopkins University, include:On the relation between the three-parameter groups of a cubic space curve and a quadric surface (1906);An application of the form-problems associated with certain Cremona groups to the solution of equations of higher degree (1908);An application of Moore's cross-ratio group to the solution of the sextic equation (1911);An application of finite geometry to the characteristic theory of the odd and even theta functions (1913); andPoint sets and allied Cremona groups (1915).[1][3]
Coble was interested in finite geometries and the relatedgroup theory, and in the Cremona transformations related to theGalois theory of equations. Later in his career, Coble also studied the relations betweenhyperelliptictheta functions,irrational binary invariants, theWeddle surface and theKummer surface.[1]
Coble published the monographAlgebraic geometry and theta functions in the tenth volume ofAmerican Mathematical Society Colloquium Publications in 1929,[7] and it was republished by the American Mathematical Society in 1961 and 1982.[1]
Coble publishedConfigurations defined by theta functions,[3] which reviewed the invariant theory of Cremona transformations as developed by Coble in his earlier papers, in theDuke Mathematical Journal in 1939. A linear homogeneous transformation with integral coefficients is associated with a Cremona transformation. These transformations form a group, which Coble studied.[1]
In 1940, Coble publishedTrilinear forms in theDuke Mathematical Journal.[3] In 1946, he publishedTernary and quaternary elimination,[3] which extends work by mathematiciansFrancis Sowerby Macaulay andBartel Leendert van der Waerden, and also extends work done by Frank Morley and Coble some 20 years earlier.[1]
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