Doris Schattschneider facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Doris Schattschneider
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| Born | October 19, 1939 (age 85) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Yale University |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions | Moravian College |
| Thesis | Restricted Roots of a Semi-simple Algebraic Group (1966) |
| Doctoral advisor | Tsuneo Tamagawa Ichirô Satake |
Doris J. Schattschneider is an American mathematician. She used to be a professor at Moravian College. She is famous for her work on tessellations. These are patterns made of shapes that fit together perfectly without any gaps. She also studied the art of M. C. Escher, a famous artist known for his amazing drawings.
Doris Schattschneider helped share the discoveries of Marjorie Rice. Marjorie was an amateur mathematician who found new ways to tile surfaces with pentagons. Doris also helped create a popular math software called The Geometer's Sketchpad.
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About Doris Schattschneider
Doris Schattschneider was born in Staten Island, New York, in 1939. Her mother taught Latin. Her father was an electrical engineer. He worked on bridge designs for New York City.
During World War II, her family moved to Lake Placid, New York. Her father worked as an engineer for the U.S. Army. Doris started school in Lake Placid. After the war, her family moved back to Staten Island.
She studied mathematics at the University of Rochester. In 1966, she earned her Ph.D. from Yale University. A Ph.D. is a very high university degree. Her special study was about "Restricted Roots of a Semi-simple Algebraic Group."
After Yale, she taught at Northwestern University for one year. Then she taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle for three years. In 1968, she joined the faculty at Moravian College. She taught there for 34 years until she retired.
Doris Schattschneider was the first woman to be an editor for Mathematics Magazine. She held this important role from 1981 to 1985.
She was married to David A. Schattschneider. He was a church historian. They had a daughter named Laura Ellen Schattschneider, who became a lawyer.
Doris Schattschneider and Marjorie Rice
Marjorie Rice was a mother of five from San Diego. She loved mathematics, even though she was not a professional mathematician. She became very interested in tessellations. These are patterns where shapes fit together perfectly.
Marjorie learned about pentagonal tiles from a magazine article. She started to investigate them herself. She even created her own way to write down her ideas. By February 1976, she had found a brand new type of pentagon tiling!
She drew many patterns using these new tiles. Then she mailed her discoveries to Martin Gardner. He was a famous writer about math and science. Martin Gardner then sent Marjorie's work to Doris Schattschneider. Doris was an expert in tiling patterns.
At first, Doris was not sure if the discoveries were real. But after looking closely, she saw that Marjorie's work was correct. Doris Schattschneider helped Martin Gardner share Marjorie's amazing discoveries. She praised Marjorie's work as a very important find by an amateur mathematician.
In 1995, Doris gave a talk about Marjorie's work. It was at a meeting for mathematicians in Los Angeles. Doris convinced Marjorie and her husband to come to the lecture. At the end of her talk, Doris introduced Marjorie Rice. Everyone in the room gave Marjorie a standing ovation!
Awards and Honors
Doris Schattschneider has received many awards for her work:
- In 1979, she won the Mathematical Association of America's Carl B. Allendoerfer Award. This award is for excellent writing in Mathematics Magazine. She won it for her article "Tiling the plane with congruent pentagons."
- In 1993, she received the Deborah and Franklin Haimo Award. This award honors great college math teachers.
- In 2012, she became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Being a fellow means she is recognized as a very important member of the math community.
- In August 2021, she gave the Martin Gardner Lecture at MathFest. This is a special lecture honoring Martin Gardner.
Selected Books
Doris Schattschneider has written and edited several books. Many of them are about tessellations and the art of M. C. Escher.
- M. C. Escher Kaleidocycles (with Wallace Walker, 1977)
- Visions of Symmetry: Notebooks, Periodic Drawings, and Related Work of M. C. Escher (1990; revised as M. C. Escher: Visions of Symmetry, 2004)
- A Companion to Calculus (with Dennis Ebersole, Alicia Sevilla, and Kay Somers, 1995)
