Mary Celine Fasenmyer facts for kids

Mary Celine Fasenmyer (born October 4, 1906, in Crown, Pennsylvania – died December 27, 1996, in Erie, Pennsylvania) was an American mathematician. She is best known for her important work on special math problems called hypergeometric functions and a branch of math called linear algebra.

Life Story

Mary Celine Fasenmyer grew up in the oil-rich areas of Pennsylvania. From a young age, she showed a strong talent for mathematics in high school. After graduating, she spent ten years teaching and studying at Mercyhurst College in Erie. During this time, she joined a religious group called the Sisters of Mercy.

She continued her math studies in Pittsburgh and at the University of Michigan. In 1946, she earned her doctorate degree, which is the highest university degree you can get. Her main teacher was Earl D. Rainville, and her special research paper was about "Some Generalized Hypergeometric Polynomials."

After getting her doctorate, Fasenmyer published two important papers that built on her research. Later, two other mathematicians, Doron Zeilberger and Herbert Wilf, used her ideas to create something called "WZ theory." This theory made it possible for computers to prove many complex math puzzles, especially in a field called combinatorics (which is about counting and arranging things). After this, she went back to Mercyhurst College to teach and did not do more research.

Sister Celine's Method

Mary Celine Fasenmyer is most famous for a special math technique named after her, often called "Sister Celine's method." She first described this method in her doctorate research paper. It helps find patterns, called "recurrence relations," in certain types of math problems known as hypergeometric series.

Her method is like a step-by-step recipe (an algorithm) that helps mathematicians find these patterns. It only needs the basic parts of the math problem to work. The amazing thing about her method is that it's very easy for computers to use and automate. Later, the work of Wilf and Zeilberger helped to make her algorithm even more general and proved that it always works correctly.

The special math problems she studied are even named after her, called Sister Celine's polynomials.

See also

• WZ theory