Alicia Boole Stott

Alicia Boole Stott

Alicia Boole Stott (June 8 1860 – December 17 1940) was the third daughter of George Boole, born in Cork, Ireland. Before marrying Walter Stott, an actuary, in 1890, she was known as Alicia Boole. She is best known for coining the term "polytope" to refer to a convex solid in four dimensions, and having an impressive grasp of four-dimensional geometry from a very early age.

She found that there were exactly six regular polytopes in four dimensions and that they are bounded by 5, 16 or 600 tetrahedra, 8 cubes, 24 octahedra or 120 dodecahedra. She then produced three-dimensional central cross-sections of all the six regular polytopes by purely Euclidean constructions and synthetic methods for the simple reason that she had never learned any analytic geometry. She made beautiful cardboard models of all these sections.

After taking up secretarial work near Liverpool in 1889 she met and married Walter Stott in 1890. Stott learned of Pieter Schoute's work on central sections of the regular polytopes in 1895 and Alicia Stott sent him photographs of her cardboard models. Schoute came to England and worked with Alicia Stott, persuading her to publish her results which she did in two papers published in Amsterdam in 1900 and 1910.

The University of Groningen honoured her by inviting her to attend the tercentenary celebrations of the university and awarding her an honorary doctorate in 1914.

In 1930 she was introduced to Coxeter and they worked together on various problems. Alicia Stott made two further important discoveries relating to constructions for polyhedra related to the golden section. Coxeter described his time doing joint work with her saying:

:"The strength and simplicity of her character combined with the diversity of her interests to make her an inspiring friend."

Her nephew was the fluid dynamicist, Geoffrey Ingram Taylor.

Publication reference

* A. Boole Stott: "Geometrical deduction of semiregular from regular polytopes and space fillings", Verhandelingen of the Koninklijke academy van Wetenschappen width unit Amsterdam, Eerste Sectie 11,1, Amsterdam, 1910

External links

* [http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/stott.htm "Alicia Boole Stott", Biographies of Women Mathematicians] , Agnes Scott College
*MacTutor Biography|id=Stott


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  • Alicia Boole Stott — (geborene Alicia Boole; * 8. Juni 1860 in Cork in Irland; † 17. Dezember 1940 in England) war eine britische Mathematikerin. Alicia Boole wurde als dritte Tochter des Mathematikers George Boole geboren, der aber starb als sie vier Jahre alt war.… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Alicia Boole Stott — Alicia Boole Stott, née le 8 juin 1860 à Cork en Irlande et morte le 17 décembre 1940 en Angleterre, est une mathématicienne spécialiste des polytopes. Son père était George Boole. Elle a travaillé avec Pieter Schoute et H.S.M. Coxeter. Sommaire… …   Wikipédia en Français

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  • Boole — George Boole, etwa 1860 George Boole [ˌdʒɔːdʒ ˈbuːl] (* 2. November 1815 in Lincoln, England; † 8. Dezember 1864 in Ballintemple, in der Grafschaft Cork, Irland) war ein englischer …   Deutsch Wikipedia

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  • George Boole — [ˌdʒɔːdʒ ˈbuːl] (* 2. November 1815 in Lincoln, England; † 8. Dezember 1864 in Ballintemple, in der Grafschaft Cork, Irland) war ein englischer Mathematiker (Autodidakt), Logiker und Philosoph …   Deutsch Wikipedia

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  • Semiregular k 21 polytope — In geometry, a semiregular k21 polytope is a polytope in (k+4) dimensions constructed from the En Coxeter group, and having only regular polytope facets. The family was named by Coxeter as k21 by its bifurcating Coxeter Dynkin diagram, with a… …   Wikipedia

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