Julian Coolidge

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]

Julian Coolidge
Born	September 28, 1873 Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	March 5, 1954 (1954-03-06) (aged 80) Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
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

Biography

Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, he graduated from Harvard University^[1] and Balliol College, Oxford.^[2]

Between 1897 and 1899, Julian Coolidge taught at the Groton School, where one of his students was Franklin D. Roosevelt.^[1] He left Groton 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][3] 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,^[4] Coolidge served as president of the Mathematical Association of America and vice-president of the American Mathematical Society.^[1][5] 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.^[6]

Coolidge died in 1954 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, aged 80.^[1]

Writings

• J. L. Coolidge (1909) The elements of non-Euclidean geometry, Oxford University Press.
• J. L. Coolidge (1916) A Treatise on the Circle and the Sphere, Oxford University Press.^[7]
• J. L. Coolidge (1924) The geometry of the complex domain, The Clarendon Press.
• J. L. Coolidge (1925) An introduction to mathematical probability, Oxford University Press.
• J. L. Coolidge (1931) A Treatise on Algebraic Plane Curves, Oxford University Press (Dover Publications 2004).
• J. L. Coolidge (1940) A history of geometrical methods,^[8] Oxford University Press (Dover Publications 2003).
• J. L. Coolidge (1945) History of the conic sections and quadric surfaces, The Clarendon Press.^[9]
• J. L. Coolidge (1949) The Mathematics Of Great Amateurs, Oxford University Press (Dover Publications 1963).

See also

• Commandino's theorem
• Projective range
• Screw theory
• Spieker circle