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History Of The Cornell Mathematics Department Pi Math Cornell Edu

Bonisiwe Shabane
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history of the cornell mathematics department pi math cornell edu

Mathematics has been an important part of Cornell from the University's beginnings 150 years ago. These pages tell about the history of the Department of Mathematics, its students, and its faculty. Through the extensive efforts of historian, Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918), and telegraph magnate, Ezra Cornell (1807-1874), "the first American University" [12,334] was born in 1868. Both men came into their joint effort through vastly different sets of circumstances. Ezra Cornell was born in Westchester County, New York (today the Bronx section of New York City), the son of Quaker parents of modest means. When he was young, his family moved to a farm in DeRuyter, New York, in the western part of the state, and he was brought up as a potter and carpenter.

With little formal schooling he left home at the age of nineteen to seek his own fortune. By 1828 he had been drawn to Ithaca (on the south banks of Cayuga Lake) to work as a carpenter during the building boom there.. Over the next decade, he earned a reputation as an "industrious small-town artisan" [11,12]. When recession hit the economy of the United States in 1837, however, the economic slow down caused the cancellation of the project for connecting Cayuga Lake with Lake Ontario (and hence Ithaca's hope of... Hard times also naturally hit the building boom in Ithaca, and by January 1, 1839 Cornell found himself out of a job. After a number of failed ventures, he became involved in the experimental telegraph line of S.

F. B. Morse and supervised the laying of the first telegraph line in America - - between Baltimore and Washington, D. C. in 1843. As the telegraph spread across America, Cornell rode the ups and downs of the new industry.

In 1857, he helped form the Western Union Telegraph Company which soon emerged as the leader in the industry. That same year tired of the day-to-day operations of the telegraph business, Cornell returned to a simpler life in Ithaca. He bought and moved his family onto the 300 acre DeWitt farm on the hill between the two deep gorges overlooking Cayuga Lake and Ithaca. There, he poured his energy into creating a model farm (now the site of Cornell University), organized a local agricultural club, and wrote about agriculture for the town paper. In 1862 he traveled abroad as an official delegate of the New York State Agricultural Society, and learned of farming practices in England and France. When he was elected to the New York State Senate in 1863, he quite naturally became the chair of its Committee on Agriculture.

It is in this setting that he first met Andrew White. Andrew Dickson White was born to well-to-do parents in Homer, New York (some thirty miles south of Syracuse, New York). His family eventually moved to Syracuse, and there they made their mark as "dealers in money, well served in spacious houses" [11,30]. White never knew the feeling of want. He had good schooling as a boy and wished to go to college at either Harvard or Yale. His father, however, forced him to go to Geneva (today Hobart and William Smith) College in Geneva, New York, to receive an Episcopalian education.

White tolerated only one year of "the regime of the religious-oriented college" [50,68], before moving on to Yale where he graduated in 1853. Although he enjoyed his years in New Haven, White was unsatisfied with the methods of instruction in higher education that prevailed there. As he put it, "[t]here was too much reciting by rote and too little real intercourse between teacher and taught" [11,33]. It was this colonial view of American higher education "whose watchword was the much repeated phrase 'mental disipline'" that White so much opposed [53,21]. After graduating from Yale, White traveled to Europe, studying in Paris, serving as French interpreter to the American Minister to Russia, and finally entering the University of Berlin where they "were remaking the concept... He returned to America in 1856 and accepted a professorship in history at the University of Michigan the following year.

This position freed him from the conventional form of higher education in America that he so disliked. Michigan's President, Henry Philip Tappan (1805-1881), had consciously modeled his university on the German institutions of higher education [53,10], and White was influenced by what he saw at Michigan: a nonsectarian institution operating successfully... It was during his time at Michigan that White first articulated his own vision of the ideal university. In an 1862 proposal to Gerrit Smith, a wealthy abolitionist and reformer from Peterboro (near Syracuse), White argued that to found a university it was necessary: This page sketches the evolution and growth of the department of Mathematics through its 150 years of existence. At the opening of Cornell, in October 1868, about 420 students enrolled.

Professor E.W. Evans and Assistant Professor Z.H. Potter taught mathematics in classrooms situated in the south building, now known as Morrill Hall. Cascadilla Hall and the south building were the only two finished buildings. The north building, now White Hall, opened in 1869. The two most prominent Cornell mathematicians of this early period are James Oliver and James McMahon.

They taught advanced mathematics, wrote research articles and supervised the first graduate students of the department. Cornell awarded seven mathematics doctorates during these first 30 years including three to women. Arthur Rollin Harris who received his doctorate in 1888 went on to pursue a successful research career in mathematics and applied mathematics. He became one of the world foremost experts of his time on the theory of tides. In 1895, Ernst Ritter, a student and collaborator of F. Klein and an outstanding mathematician from Germany, accepted an assistant professorship at Cornell.

He crossed the Atlantic that summer but never reached Ithaca. Upon his arrival, he died from typhoid fever at Ellis Island. Earlier that spring, J. Oliver had passed away after serving as Chair of the department for 21 years. In the fall of 1895, the department had 2 professors, 2 assistant professors and 3 instructors. A room in White Hall had been attributed to the Department of Mathematics in 1884.

The total student enrollment at Cornell had reached 2057 including about 150 graduate students. At the opening of Cornell, in October 1868, about 420 students enrolled. Professor E.W. Evans and Assistant Professor Z.H. Potter taught mathematics in classrooms situated in the south building, now known as Morrill Hall. Cascadilla Hall and the south building were the only two finished buildings.

The north building, now White Hall, opened in 1869. The two most prominent Cornell mathematicians of this early period are James Oliver and James McMahon. They taught advanced mathematics, wrote research articles and supervised the first graduate students of the department. Cornell awarded seven mathematics doctorates during these first 30 years including three to women. Arthur Rollin Harris who received his doctorate in 1888 went on to pursue a successful research career in mathematics and applied mathematics. He became one of the world foremost experts of his time on the theory of tides.

In 1895, Ernst Ritter, a student and collaborator of F. Klein and an outstanding mathematician from Germany, accepted an assistant professorship at Cornell. He crossed the Atlantic that summer but never reached Ithaca. Upon his arrival, he died from typhoid fever at Ellis Island. Earlier that spring, J. Oliver had passed away after serving as Chair of the department for 21 years.

In the fall of 1895, the department had 2 professors, 2 assistant professors and 3 instructors. A room in White Hall had been attributed to the Department of in 1884. The total student enrollment at Cornell had reached 2057 including about 150 graduate students. Four long term faculty lead the department and its mathematical research during this period. They are James McMahon, Virgil Snyder, John Hutchinson and Wallie Hurwitz. Snyder and Hurwitz were the most prolific graduate advisors in the department before World War II.

John Hutchinson was the first Cornell Professor to be invited to speak at the International Congress of Mathematicians (Toronto, 1924). Cornell Mathematics Professors and their graduate students before 1940 Mathematics has been an important part of Cornell from the University's beginnings 150 years ago. These pages tell about the history of the Department of , its students, and its faculty.

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