Anna Johnson Pell Wheeler
Encyclopedia
Anna Johnson Pell Wheeler (May 5, 1883 – March 26, 1966) was an American
mathematician
. She is best known for early work on linear algebra in infinite dimension, which has later become a part of functional analysis
.
in the United States
. At the age of nine her family moved to Akron, Ohio
and she was enrolled in a private school
. In 1903 she graduated from the University of South Dakota
and began graduate work at the University of Iowa
. Her thesis, titled The extension of Galois theory
to linear differential equation
s, earned her a master's degree
in 1904. She obtained a second graduate degree one year later from Radcliffe College
, where she took courses from Maxime Bôcher
and William Fogg Osgood
.
In 1905 she won an Alice Freeman Palmer
Fellowship from Wellesley College to spend a year at the University of Göttingen, where she studied under David Hilbert
, Felix Klein
, Hermann Minkowski
, and Karl Schwarzschild
. As she worked toward a doctorate
, her relationship with Alexander Pell, a former professor from the University of South Dakota, intensified. He traveled to Göttingen and they were married in July 1907. This trip posed a significant threat to Pell's life, since he was a former Russia
n double agent
whose real name was Sergey Degayev
.
After the wedding, the Pells returned to Vermillion, South Dakota
, where she taught classes in the theory of functions
and differential equation
s. By 1908 she was back in Göttingen, working on her dissertation; an argument with Hilbert, however, made its completion impossible. She moved with her husband to Chicago
, where she worked with E. H. Moore
to finish her dissertation, Biorthogonal Systems of Functions with Applications to the Theory of Integral Equation
s, and received a Ph.D.
in 1909.
She began looking for a teaching position, but found hostility in every mathematics department. She wrote to a friend: "I had hoped for a position in one of the good univ. like Wisc., Ill. etc., but there is such an objection to women that they prefer a man even if he is inferior both in training and research". In 1911 her husband suffered a stroke
and she, after teaching his classes at the Armout Institute for the remainder of the semester, accepted a position at Mount Holyoke College
. She taught there for seven years.
In 1918 she became an associate professor at Bryn Mawr College
in Pennsylvania
. Although Alexander continued his research, he never taught again, and died in 1921. Three years later she became the head of the Bryn Mawr mathematics department, and became a full professor in 1925. In the same year she married a colleague named Arthur Wheeler, who soon went to Princeton University
. She moved with him, commuting to Bryn Mawr, teaching part-time, and becoming active in Princeton's mathematics society. After he died in 1932, she returned to Bryn Mawr and taught full-time.
Wheeler was instrumental in bringing German mathematician Emmy Noether
to Bryn Mawr in 1933, after her expulsion from the University of Göttingen by the Nazi government. The two women worked together happily for two years, until Noether died suddenly after an operation in 1935. Wheeler continued teaching at Bryn Mawr until she retired in 1948. She died in 1966 after suffering a stroke.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
. She is best known for early work on linear algebra in infinite dimension, which has later become a part of functional analysis
Functional analysis
Functional analysis is a branch of mathematical analysis, the core of which is formed by the study of vector spaces endowed with some kind of limit-related structure and the linear operators acting upon these spaces and respecting these structures in a suitable sense...
.
Biography
Anna Johnson was born on 5 May 1883 to Swedish immigrant parents in Hawarden, IowaHawarden, Iowa
Hawarden is a city in Sioux County, Iowa, United States. The population was 2,478 at the 2000 census. It is located on the Big Sioux River.-Geography:Hawarden is located at , along the Big Sioux River....
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. At the age of nine her family moved to Akron, Ohio
Akron, Ohio
Akron , is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Summit County. It is located in the Great Lakes region approximately south of Lake Erie along the Little Cuyahoga River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 199,110. The Akron Metropolitan...
and she was enrolled in a private school
Private school
Private schools, also known as independent schools or nonstate schools, are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students' tuition, rather than relying on mandatory...
. In 1903 she graduated from the University of South Dakota
University of South Dakota
The University of South Dakota ', the state’s oldest university, was founded in 1862 and classes began in 1882. Located in Vermillion, South Dakota, United States, USD is home to South Dakota's only medical school and law school. USD is governed by the South Dakota Board of Regents, and its current...
and began graduate work at the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
. Her thesis, titled The extension of Galois theory
Galois theory
In mathematics, more specifically in abstract algebra, Galois theory, named after Évariste Galois, provides a connection between field theory and group theory...
to linear differential equation
Linear differential equation
Linear differential equations are of the formwhere the differential operator L is a linear operator, y is the unknown function , and the right hand side ƒ is a given function of the same nature as y...
s, earned her a master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in 1904. She obtained a second graduate degree one year later from Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the coordinate college for Harvard University. It was also one of the Seven Sisters colleges. Radcliffe College conferred joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas beginning in 1963 and a formal merger agreement with...
, where she took courses from Maxime Bôcher
Maxime Bôcher
Maxime Bôcher was an American mathematician who published about 100 papers on differential equations, series, and algebra. He also wrote elementary texts such as Trigonometry and Analytic Geometry. Bôcher's theorem, Bôcher's equation, and the Bôcher Memorial Prize are named after him.-Life:Bôcher...
and William Fogg Osgood
William Fogg Osgood
William Fogg Osgood was an American mathematician, born in Boston.In 1886, he graduated from Harvard, where, after studying at the universities of Göttingen and Erlangen , he was instructor , assistant professor , and thenceforth professor of mathematics...
.
In 1905 she won an Alice Freeman Palmer
Alice Freeman Palmer
Alice Freeman Palmer was an American educator.She was born Alice Elvira Freeman in Colesville, New York and brought up in Windsor, New York. Her parents both came from well-to-do families with interests in lumber, dairy farming and land...
Fellowship from Wellesley College to spend a year at the University of Göttingen, where she studied under David Hilbert
David Hilbert
David Hilbert was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of...
, Felix Klein
Felix Klein
Christian Felix Klein was a German mathematician, known for his work in group theory, function theory, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the connections between geometry and group theory...
, Hermann Minkowski
Hermann Minkowski
Hermann Minkowski was a German mathematician of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, who created and developed the geometry of numbers and who used geometrical methods to solve difficult problems in number theory, mathematical physics, and the theory of relativity.- Life and work :Hermann Minkowski was born...
, and Karl Schwarzschild
Karl Schwarzschild
Karl Schwarzschild was a German physicist. He is also the father of astrophysicist Martin Schwarzschild.He is best known for providing the first exact solution to the Einstein field equations of general relativity, for the limited case of a single spherical non-rotating mass, which he accomplished...
. As she worked toward a doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
, her relationship with Alexander Pell, a former professor from the University of South Dakota, intensified. He traveled to Göttingen and they were married in July 1907. This trip posed a significant threat to Pell's life, since he was a former Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n double agent
Double agent
A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...
whose real name was Sergey Degayev
Sergey Degayev
Sergey Petrovich Degayev was a Russian terrorist, an agent of the Okhrana, and the murderer of inspector of secret police Georgy Sudeykin...
.
After the wedding, the Pells returned to Vermillion, South Dakota
Vermillion, South Dakota
Vermillion is a city in and the county seat of Clay County, in the southeastern corner of the U.S. state of South Dakota, and the tenth largest city in the state. According to the 2010 Census, the population was 10,571. Vermillion lies atop a bluff near the Missouri River.The area has been home to...
, where she taught classes in the theory of functions
Function (mathematics)
In mathematics, a function associates one quantity, the argument of the function, also known as the input, with another quantity, the value of the function, also known as the output. A function assigns exactly one output to each input. The argument and the value may be real numbers, but they can...
and differential equation
Differential equation
A differential equation is a mathematical equation for an unknown function of one or several variables that relates the values of the function itself and its derivatives of various orders...
s. By 1908 she was back in Göttingen, working on her dissertation; an argument with Hilbert, however, made its completion impossible. She moved with her husband to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, where she worked with E. H. Moore
E. H. Moore
Eliakim Hastings Moore was an American mathematician.-Life:Moore, the son of a Methodist minister and grandson of US Congressman Eliakim H. Moore, discovered mathematics through a summer job at the Cincinnati Observatory while in high school. He learned mathematics at Yale University, where he was...
to finish her dissertation, Biorthogonal Systems of Functions with Applications to the Theory of Integral Equation
Integral equation
In mathematics, an integral equation is an equation in which an unknown function appears under an integral sign. There is a close connection between differential and integral equations, and some problems may be formulated either way...
s, and received a Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in 1909.
She began looking for a teaching position, but found hostility in every mathematics department. She wrote to a friend: "I had hoped for a position in one of the good univ. like Wisc., Ill. etc., but there is such an objection to women that they prefer a man even if he is inferior both in training and research". In 1911 her husband suffered a stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
and she, after teaching his classes at the Armout Institute for the remainder of the semester, accepted a position at Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College is a liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was the first member of the Seven Sisters colleges, and served as a model for some of the others...
. She taught there for seven years.
In 1918 she became an associate professor at Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. Although Alexander continued his research, he never taught again, and died in 1921. Three years later she became the head of the Bryn Mawr mathematics department, and became a full professor in 1925. In the same year she married a colleague named Arthur Wheeler, who soon went to Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
. She moved with him, commuting to Bryn Mawr, teaching part-time, and becoming active in Princeton's mathematics society. After he died in 1932, she returned to Bryn Mawr and taught full-time.
Wheeler was instrumental in bringing German mathematician Emmy Noether
Emmy Noether
Amalie Emmy Noether was an influential German mathematician known for her groundbreaking contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics. Described by David Hilbert, Albert Einstein and others as the most important woman in the history of mathematics, she revolutionized the theories of...
to Bryn Mawr in 1933, after her expulsion from the University of Göttingen by the Nazi government. The two women worked together happily for two years, until Noether died suddenly after an operation in 1935. Wheeler continued teaching at Bryn Mawr until she retired in 1948. She died in 1966 after suffering a stroke.
External links
- "Anna Johnson Pell Wheeler", Biographies of Women Mathematicians, Agnes Scott CollegeAgnes Scott CollegeAgnes Scott College is a private undergraduate college in the United States. Agnes Scott's campus lies in downtown Decatur, Georgia, nestled inside the perimeter of the bustling metro-Atlanta area....
- Anna Johnson Pell Wheeler at the Mathematics Genealogy ProjectMathematics Genealogy ProjectThe Mathematics Genealogy Project is a web-based database for the academic genealogy of mathematicians. As of September, 2010, it contained information on approximately 145,000 mathematical scientists who contribute to "research-level mathematics"...
- Biorthogonal Systems of Functions (Abstract)