Irene Stegun

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Irene Stegun
A white woman with dark hair
Stegun, c. 1995
BornFebruary 9, 1919
Yonkers, New York
DiedJanuary 27, 2008
Danbury, Connecticut
OccupationMathematician
Notable workA Handbook of Mathematical Functions (1964)

Irene Ann Stegun (February 9, 1919 – January 27, 2008)[1] was an American mathematician at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology) who edited a classic book of mathematical tables called A Handbook of Mathematical Functions, widely known as Abramowitz and Stegun.[2]

Early life and education

Stegun was born in Yonkers, New York,[1] the daughter of Richard Stegun and Regina Skakandi Stegun. Her parents were both immigrants from central Europe. Her father owned a restaurant.[3] She trained as a teacher, and later completed a master's degree in mathematics at Columbia University.[4]

Career

Stegun began her mathematical career during the Second World War. After teaching mathematics at a Catholic school in New York, she joined the Planning Committee of the Mathematical Tables Project of the WPA. In that role, she learned the basics of numerical analysis from the committee's chair, Gertrude Blanch. While working at the Mathematics Tables Project, she completed her master's degree at Columbia.[4]

In 1948, Stegun and a handful of other members of the Mathematical Tables Project moved to Washington, D.C., where they set up the Computation Laboratory of the National Bureau of Standards. She eventually rose to assistant chief of the Computation Laboratory at NBS. In 1965, Stegun was awarded a Gold Medal from the Department of Commerce for her efforts in completing the project. She held the position of assistant chief of the Computing Lab until she became the interim director in 1965.

Publications

Stegun and Milton Abramowitz co-edited a book of mathematical tables called A Handbook of Mathematical Functions (1964).[5][6] The handbook is considered a classic,[7] "a major cooperative endeavor"[8] and "one of the very few scientific activities of the 1950s led by a woman."[4] The pair also wrote articles for academic journals including Physical Review,[9] Journal of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics,[10] and Mathematics of Computation.[11] Abramowitz died in 1958, before their book was published.[4] With other co-authors, she also had publications in the Journal of Applied Physics[12] and the Journal of Research of the National Bureau of Standards.[13]

  • "Generation of Coulomb Wave Functions by Means of Recurrence Relations" (1955, with Milton Abramowitz)[9]
  • "Pitfalls in Computation" (1956, with Milton Abramowitz)[10]
  • "Generation of Bessel Functions on High Speed Computers" (1957, with Milton Abramowitz)[11]
  • "Ferroelectric Switching and the Sievert Integral" (1963, with P. H. Fang)[12]
  • "Automatic computing methods for special functions" (1970, with Ruth Zucker)[13]
  • "Automatic computing methods for special functions. Part II. The exponential integral En (x)" (1974, with Ruth Zucker)[14]
  • "Automatic computing methods for special functions. Part III. The sine, cosine, exponential integrals, and related functions" (1976, with Ruth Zucker)[15]
  • "Automatic Computing Methods for Special Functions. Part IV. Complex Error Function, Fresnel Integrals, and Other Related Functions" (1981, with Ruth Zucker)[16]

Death

Stegun died in 2008, at the age of 88, in Danbury, Connecticut.[1]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "Obituary Stegun, Irene A." The Journal News. 2008-01-29. Archived from the original on 2011-07-27.
  2. SIAM News. Archived from the original
    on 2017-05-03.
  3. ^ "Obituary for Regina Stegun (Aged 60)". The Herald Statesman. 1970-08-14. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-09-22 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^
    JSTOR 27642002
    .
  5. ^ Abramowitz, Milton; Stegun, Irene A. (1964). Handbook of Mathematical Functions with Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables. U.S. Government Printing Office.
  6. JSTOR 2004114
    .
  7. ISBN 978-1-4008-4936-9
    .
  8. ^ "Handbook of Mathematical Functions Passes 100 000 Mark". National Bureau of Standards, Technical News Bulletin. 53 (11): 258. November 1969 – via Internet Archive.
  9. ^
    doi:10.1103/PhysRev.98.1851
    .
  10. ^
    JSTOR 2098786
    .
  11. ^
    JSTOR 2001944
    .
  12. ^
    ISSN 0021-8979
    .
  13. ^ a b Stegun, Irene A., and Ruth Zucker. "Automatic computing methods for special functions." J. Res. Nat. Bur. Standards B 74 (1970): 211-224.
  14. ^ Stegun, Irene A., and Ruth Zucker. "Automatic computing methods for special functions. Part II. The exponential integral En (x)." J. Res. Nat. Bur. Standards B 78 (1974): 199-216.
  15. ^ Stegun, Irene A., and Ruth Zucker. "Automatic computing methods for special functions. Part III. The sine, cosine, exponential integrals, and related functions." J. Res. Nat. Bur. Standards B 80 (1976): 291-311.
  16. PMID 34566066
    .
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