Joseph Wedderburn facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Joseph Wedderburn
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Joseph Henry Maclagan Wedderburn (1882–1948)
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| Born | 2 February 1882 Forfar, Angus, Scotland
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| Died | 9 October 1948 (aged 66) |
| Nationality | British |
| Citizenship | American |
| Alma mater | University of Edinburgh |
| Known for | Wedderburn-Etherington number Artin–Wedderburn theorem |
| Awards | MacDougall-Brisbane Gold Medal, Fellow of the Royal Society |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematician |
| Institutions | Princeton University |
| Doctoral advisor | George Chrystal |
| Doctoral students | Merrill Flood Nathan Jacobson Ernst Snapper |
Joseph Henry Maclagan Wedderburn (born February 2, 1882, died October 9, 1948) was a brilliant Scottish mathematician. He spent most of his career teaching at Princeton University in the United States.
Wedderburn was a key figure in a branch of math called abstract algebra. He made important discoveries about how numbers and mathematical objects behave. For example, he proved that a certain type of number system, called a finite division algebra, is also a field. This means it acts like the number systems we use every day. He also helped create the Artin–Wedderburn theorem, which is a big idea about simple algebras. He also studied group theory and matrix algebra, which are important parts of modern math.
His younger brother, Ernest Wedderburn, became a lawyer.
Contents
Life of Joseph Wedderburn
Joseph Wedderburn was one of 14 children! His parents were Alexander Wedderburn, a doctor, and Anne Ogilvie. He grew up in Forfar, Scotland.
Early Education and University
In 1895, when Joseph was 13, his parents sent him and his younger brother Ernest to live in Edinburgh. They lived with their uncle, J R Maclagan Wedderburn. This allowed them to attend George Watson's College, a good school in the city.
Joseph started at the University of Edinburgh in 1898. By 1903, he was already publishing his first math papers. He also worked as an assistant in the university's physics lab. That same year, he earned his MA degree in mathematics with top honors. He was also chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was only 21, making him one of the youngest people ever to receive this honor!
Studying Abroad and Return to Scotland
After Edinburgh, Joseph studied for a short time in Germany. He went to the University of Leipzig and the University of Berlin. There, he met famous algebra experts like Frobenius and Schur.
Thanks to a special scholarship, he spent a year (1904–1905) at the University of Chicago in the US. He worked with other important mathematicians there. The most important was Leonard Dickson, who was a leading American algebraist at the time.
In 1905, Wedderburn returned to Scotland. He worked at the University of Edinburgh for four years as an assistant to George Chrystal. Chrystal helped him earn his D.Sc. degree in 1908. His main project was about hypercomplex numbers. From 1906 to 1908, Wedderburn also helped edit a math journal called the Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society.
Moving to Princeton
In 1909, Joseph Wedderburn moved back to the United States. He became a math teacher at Princeton University. He worked with other famous mathematicians like Oswald Veblen and George Birkhoff.
World War I Service
When First World War started, Wedderburn was the first person at Princeton to volunteer for the British Army. He served longer than anyone else from the university staff. He joined the Seaforth Highlanders and fought in France. He started as a private, then became a Lieutenant in 1914, and a Captain in 1915.
While serving as a Captain in the Royal Engineers, he invented special equipment. This equipment used sound-ranging to figure out where enemy artillery (big guns) were located. This was a very helpful invention for the war effort.
Later Life and Legacy
After the war, Wedderburn returned to Princeton. He became an Associate Professor in 1921. He also helped edit the Annals of Mathematics, an important math journal, until 1928. While at Princeton, he guided only three students through their PhDs. One of them was Nathan Jacobson, who became a famous mathematician himself.
In his later years, Wedderburn became more private. He might have even suffered from depression. After he retired early in 1945, he became very isolated. Sadly, when he passed away from a heart attack, it took several days for anyone to notice. He had asked for all his personal papers and notes to be destroyed after his death.
Wedderburn received important awards for his work. He got the MacDougall-Brisbane Gold Medal from the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1921. He was also chosen to be a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1933.
Joseph Wedderburn's Work
Wedderburn published about 40 math papers and books. He made big steps forward in understanding rings, algebras, and matrix theory. These are all important areas of advanced mathematics.
Key Discoveries
In 1905, Wedderburn published a paper with three proofs for a theorem. This theorem said that a noncommutative finite division ring cannot exist. This sounds complicated, but it means that if you have a number system with a limited number of elements, and you can divide by any non-zero number, then the order in which you multiply numbers doesn't matter (it's commutative).
Another mathematician, Leonard Dickson, also found a proof for this. There was some debate about who proved it first. However, Wedderburn's work was very important for understanding these math ideas.
Wedderburn also worked with Oswald Veblen on finite projective geometries. In 1907, they showed how certain geometry rules connect to each other. They also created new types of geometries that didn't follow all the usual rules.
"On Hypercomplex Numbers"
Wedderburn's most famous paper was "On hypercomplex numbers," published in 1907. For this work, he earned his D.Sc. degree. In this paper, he sorted out and described different types of simple and semisimple algebras. He showed that every finite-dimensional semisimple algebra can be built from simpler simple algebras. He also proved that every simple algebra is like a matrix algebra for some division ring. The Artin–Wedderburn theorem builds on these ideas.
"Lectures on Matrices"
His most well-known book is Lectures on Matrices (1934). Another mathematician, Nathan Jacobson, praised this book. He said it was not just a collection of other people's work. Instead, it was Wedderburn's own new way of putting ideas together. The book had a huge list of 661 related works!
Wedderburn as a Teacher
Wedderburn was known for being a very shy person. When he taught, he often looked at the blackboard instead of his students. He used the printed pages from his book, Lectures on Matrices, pasted onto cardboard. He would read from these pages out loud while writing the same things on the blackboard.
See also
- Hypercomplex numbers
- Wedderburn–Etherington number
- Wedderburn's little theorem
- Wedderburn's theorem (division ring)
- Wedderburn's theorem (simple ring)
- Artin–Wedderburn theorem
