Julian Coolidge | |
---|---|
Born | September 28, 1873 Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Died | March 5, 1954 Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. | (aged 80)
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Harvard University Oxford University |
Known for | A Treatise on the Circle and the Sphere |
Awards | Legion of Honour – Knight (1919) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | mathematics |
Institutions | Harvard University |
Doctoral advisor | Eduard Study |
Doctoral students | Roger Arthur Johnson |
Julian Lowell Coolidge (September 28, 1873 – March 5, 1954) was an American mathematician, historian, a professor and chairman of the Harvard University Mathematics Department.[1]
Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, he graduated from Harvard University and Oxford University.[1]
Between 1897 and 1899, Julian Coolidge taught at the Groton School, where one of his students was Franklin D. Roosevelt.[1] He left the private school to accept a teaching position at Harvard and in 1902 was given an assistant professorship, but took two years off to further his education with studies in Turin, Italy[1] before receiving his doctorate from the University of Bonn.[1][2] Julian Coolidge then returned to teach at Harvard where he remained for his entire academic career, interrupted only by a year at the Sorbonne in Paris as an exchange professor.[1]
During World War I, he served with the U.S. Army's Overseas Expeditionary Force in France, rising to the rank of major. In 1919, he was awarded a Knight of France's Legion of Honor.[1]
Coolidge returned to teach at Harvard where he was awarded a full professorship. In 1927 he was appointed chairman of the Mathematics Department at Harvard,[1] a position he held until his retirement in 1940. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,[3] Coolidge served as president of the Mathematical Association of America and vice-president of the American Mathematical Society.[1][4] He authored several books on mathematics and on the history of mathematics. He was Master of Lowell House (one of Harvard's undergraduate residences) from 1930 to 1940.[5]
Coolidge died in 1954 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, aged 80.[1]