Joseph Ritt
Joseph Ritt | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 23, 1893 New York City, United States |
| Died | January 5, 1951 (aged 57) New York City, USA |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Known for | Differential algebra |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions | Columbia University |
| Doctoral advisor | Edward Kasner |
| Doctoral students | Ellis Kolchin Howard Levi Edgar Lorch |
Joseph Fels Ritt (August 23, 1893 – January 5, 1951) was an American mathematician at Columbia University in the early 20th century. He was born and died in New York.
After beginning his undergraduate studies at
United States National Academy of Sciences.[1][2] He has 463 academic descendants listed in the Mathematics Genealogy Project, mostly through his student Ellis Kolchin.[4] Ritt was an Invited Speaker with talk Elementary functions and their inverses at the ICM in 1924 in Toronto and a Plenary Speaker at the ICM in 1950 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[5]
Ritt founded differential algebra theory, which was subsequently much developed by him and his student Ellis Kolchin.[6]
He is known for his work on characterizing the
indefinite integrals that can be solved in closed form, for his work on the theory of ordinary differential equations and partial differential equations, for beginning the study of differential algebraic groups,[1][2] and for the method of characteristic sets
used in the solution of systems of polynomial equations.
Despite his great achievements, he was never awarded any prize for his work, a fact which he resented, as he felt he was underappreciated. He once composed the following epitaph for himself:[7]
- Here at your feet J. F. Ritt lies;
- He never won the Bôcher prize.
Selected works
- Differential equations from the algebraic standpoint, New York, American Mathematical Society 1932[8]
- Theory of Functions, New York 1945, 1947[9]
- Integration in finite terms: Liouville's Theory of Elementary Methods, Columbia University Press 1948[10]
- Differential Algebra, American Mathematical Society 1950,[11] Dover 1966
See also
- Ritt characteristic set
- Ritt theorem
- Ritt's polynomial decomposition theorem
References
- ^ a b c O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Joseph Ritt", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
- ^ United States National Academy of Sciences.
- .
- ^ Joseph Ritt at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- ^ Ritt, J. F. (1950). "Differential groups" (PDF). In: Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A., August 30–September 6, 1950. Vol. 1. pp. 207–208. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 30, 2013. Retrieved December 4, 2017.
- ISBN 978-0-7923-5484-0.
- ISBN 978-0-8218-0136-9.
- .
- .
- .
- .
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Other | |
