Robert Edgar Allardice

For other people named Robert Allardice, see Robert Allardice (disambiguation).

Robert Edgar Allardice
Born(1862-03-02)2 March 1862
Edinburgh
Died6 May 1928(1928-05-06) (aged 66)
Palo Alto
NationalityScottish
Known forestablishing the Mathematics Department of Stanford University
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics

Robert Edgar Allardice FRSE (1862 – 1928) was a Scottish mathematician, specializing in geometry.[1]

Biography

Allardice matriculated in 1879 at the University of Edinburgh and received there in 1882 an M.A. in mathematics.[1] In 1883 Allardice became assistant in mathematics to Professor George Chrystal at the University of Edinburgh and remained there until 1892.[2] In 1892 Allardice was appointed a professor to Stanford University at the start of the University's second year and immediately became the head of the mathematics department, continuing in that position until his retirement in 1927.[3] For many years, the senior faculty in mathematics at Stanford University consisted of Allardice and Rufus Green.[4] The Stanford mathematics department, with Allardice as head, recruited Hans Frederick Blichfeldt and George Abram Miller.[5]

Allardice was a founder member of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society, joining in February 1883. He served on the committee of the Society from its foundation. He was Vice-President of the Society from 1889 to 1890, President of the Society in session 1890-91, and Editor of Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society in session 1891-92, his final year in Edinburgh.[2]

On 16 January 1888 he was elected A Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were George Chrystal, Robert McNair Ferguson, John Sturgeon Mackay, and Peter Guthrie Tait.[2]

After suffering from a lingering illness for over a year, Allardice died in 1928 from a lung infection. He never married and upon his death was survived by a sister in Glasgow.[3]

Selected publications

  • "Spherical Geometry." Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society 2 (1883): 8–16. doi:10.1017/S0013091500037020
  • with A. Y. Fraser: "La Tour d'Hanoï." Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society 2 (1883): 50–53. doi:10.1017/S0013091500037147
  • "Radical Axes in Spherical Geometry." Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society 3 (1884): 59–61. doi:10.1017/S0013091500037305
  • "On a number of concurrent spheres." Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society 3 (1884): 118. doi:10.1017/S0013091500037457
  • "Projective Geometry of the Sphere." Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society 4 (1885): 56–58. doi:10.1017/S0013091500029916
  • "Note on a Formula in Quaternions." Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society 7 (1888): 8–10. doi:10.1017/S001309150003025X
  • "On some theorems in the theory of numbers." Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society 8 (1889): 16–19. doi:10.1017/S0013091500030467
  • "Some Geometrical Theorems." Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society 9 (1890): 11–13. doi:10.1017/S0013091500030716
  • "Note on the dual of a focal property of the inscribed ellipse." The Annals of Mathematics 2, no. 1/4 (1900): 148–150. doi:10.2307/2007193
  • "On Some Curves Connected with a System of Similar Conics." The Annals of Mathematics 3, no. 1/4 (1901): 154–160. doi:10.2307/1967641
  • "On some systems of conics connected with the triangle." Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society 20 (1901): 40–43. doi:10.1017/S0013091500032843
  • "On a Linear Transformation, and Some Systems of Hypocycloids." The Annals of Mathematics 5, no. 4 (1904): 169–172. doi:10.2307/2007262
  • "On a limit of the roots of an equation that is independent of all but two of the coefficients." Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 13, no. 9 (1907): 443–447. doi:10.1090/S0002-9904-1907-01498-2
  • "On the Locus of the Foci of a System of Similar Conics through three Points." Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society 27 (1909): 37–50. doi:10.1017/S0013091500002145

References

  1. ^ a b Horsburgh, Ellice Martin (1929). "Obituary. Robert Edgar Allardyce". Proc. Edin. Math. Soc. 48: 209–210. doi:10.1017/S0370164600021519.
  2. ^ a b c O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Robert Edgar Allardice", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
  3. ^ a b "Allardice Dies In Palo Alto After Illness Of Year". The Stanford Daily. Vol. 73, no. 44. 7 May 1928.
  4. ^ "Guide to the Rufus Lot Green Papers". Online Archives of California.
  5. ^ Royden, Halsey (1989). "A history of mathematics at Stanford". In: A century of mathematics in America, Part II. Providence, Rhode Island: American Mathematical Society. pp. 237–277. ISBN 9780821801307.


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