Eric Temple Bell

Infobox_Scientist
name = Eric Temple Bell


image_width =
caption =
birth_date = birth date|1883|2|7|mf=y
birth_place = Peterhead, Scotland
death_date = death date and age|1960|12|21|1883|2|7|mf=y
death_place = Watsonville, California
residence = flagicon|USA United States of America
nationality = flagicon|GBR British
field = Mathematics
work_institution = University of Washington
California Institute of Technology
alma_mater = Stanford University
Columbia University (Ph.D.)
doctoral_advisor = Frank Nelson Cole
Cassius Keyser
doctoral_students = Howard Percy Robertson
Morgan Ward
known_for = Number theory
Bell series
Bell polynomials
Bell numbers
prizes = Bôcher Memorial Prize (1924)
children =
religion =
footnotes = Eric Temple Bell (February 7 1883, Peterhead, Scotland - December 21 1960, Watsonville, California) was a mathematician and science fiction author born in Scotland who lived in the U.S. for most of his life. He published his non-fiction under his given name and his fiction as John Taine.

Biography

He was born in Peterhead, Scotland; but his father, a fish-factor, moved to San Jose, California in 1884, when he was fifteen months old; the family returned to Bedford, England after his father's death, on January 4, 1896. Bell returned to the United States, by way of Montreal in 1902.

Bell attended Stanford University and Columbia University (where he was a student of Cassius Jackson Keyser) and was on the faculty first at the University of Washington and later at the California Institute of Technology.

He did research in number theory; see in particular Bell series. He attempted—not altogether successfully—to make the traditional umbral calculus (understood at that time to be the same thing as the "symbolic method" of Blissard) logically rigorous. He also did much work using generating functions, treated as formal power series, without concern for convergence. He is the eponym of the Bell polynomials and the Bell numbers of combinatorics. [He is "not" the eponym of the "bell curve", which is so called because of its apparent similarity in shape to the cross-section of a bell.] In 1924 he was awarded the Bôcher Memorial Prize for his work in mathematical analysis.

Fiction and poetry

In the early 1920's, Bell wrote several long poems. He also wrote several science fiction novels, which independently invented some of the earliest devices and ideas of science fiction. [cite book|title=The Search for E.T. Bell, also known as John Taine|first=Constance|last=Reid|year=1993|isbn=0-88385-508-9|quote="Most fiction writers are, after all, primarily fiction writers," he [Glenn Hughes, professor of English literature] wrote of Bell. "Some of them may show a trifle more finesse in plot handling or characterization, but none of them surpasses Bell in grandness of conception or accuracy of detail. One has always the uncanny feeling that [he] is dealing in probabilities, and that many of his most extravagant dreams are but pre-visions of nightmares in store for the human race.|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|oclc=29190602] Only "The Purple Sapphire" was published at the time, under the pseudonym John Taine; this was before Hugo Gernsback and the "genre" publication of science fiction. His novels were published later, both in book form and serialized in the magazines.

Writing about mathematics

Bell wrote a book of biographical sketches titled "Men of Mathematics", (one chapter of which was the first popular account of the 19th century woman mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya) and which is still in print. The book inspired many people to take up mathematics, though later historians of mathematics have disputed the accuracy of much of Bell's history. Bell romanticized Évariste Galois to a point that Tony Rothman describes as deliberate fiction, the creation of a legend. [Rothman, Tony (1982) "Genius and Biographers: The Fictionalization of Evariste Galois," "American Mathematical Monthly" 89(2): 84-106; citation p. 103. [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9890%28198202%2989%3A2%3C84%3AGABTFO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D JSTOR URL] ] His treatment of Georg Cantor, which reduced his relationships with his father and with Leopold Kronecker to stereotypes, has been even more severely criticized. [See chiefly Ivor Grattan-Guinness (1971) "Towards a Biography of Georg Cantor," "Annals of Science" 27: 345-91.]

Bell's later book, "Development of Mathematics" has been less famous, but Constance Reid finds it has many fewer weaknesses. "The Last Problem" is a hybrid, between a social history and a history of mathematics.

Works

Non-fiction books

* "An Arithmetical Theory of Certain Numerical Functions", Seattle Washington, The University, 1915, 50p. [http://www.archive.org/details/ariththeorycernu00bellrich PDF/DjVu copy] from Internet Archive.
* " The Cyclotomic Quinary Quintic", Lancaster, Pennsylvania, The New Era Printing Company, 1912, 97p.
* "Algebraic Arithmetic", New York, American Mathematical Society, 1927, 180p.
* "Debunking Science", Seattle, University of Washington book store, 1930, 40p.
* "The Search for Truth", Baltimore, Reynal and Hitchcock, 1934, 279p.
**Reprint: Williams and Wilkins Co, 1935
* "Man and His Lifebelts", New York, Reynal & Hitchcock, 1938, 340p.
**Reprint: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1935, 2nd printing 1946
**Reprint: Kessinger Publishing, 2005
* "Men of Mathematics", New York, Simon and Schuster, 1937, 592p.
* "The Development of Mathematics", New York, McGraw-Hill, 1945, 637p.
**Reprint: New York, McGraw-Hill, 1945
**Reprint: Dover Publications, 1992
* "The Magic of Numbers", Whittlesey House, 1946, 418p.
**Reprint: New York, Dover Publications, 1991, ISBN 0-486-26788-1, 418p.
**Reprint: Sacred Science Institute, 2006
* "Mathematics: Queen and Servant of Science" (1951)
* "The Last Problem", New York, Simon and Schuster, 1961, 308p.
** Reprint: Mathematical Association of America, 1990, ISBN 0-88385-451-1, 326p.
* "Numerology", Hyperion Press, 1979, ISBN 0-88355-774-6, 195p.
* [http://www.archive.org/details/queenofthescienc031537mbp "Queen Of The Sciences"]

cholarly papers

* ["This subsection needs attention."]

Novels

* "The Purple Sapphire" (1924)
* "The Gold Tooth" (1927)
* "Quayle's Invention" (1927)
* "Green Fire" (1928)
* "The Greatest Adventure" (1929)
* "The Iron Star" (1930)
* "The Time Stream" (1931)
* "Seeds of Life" (1931)
* "Before the Dawn" (1934)
* "The Forbidden Garden" (1947)
* "The Cosmic Geoids and One Other" (1949)
* "The Crystal Horde" (1952)
* "G.O.G. 666" (1954)

Poetry

* "The Singer" (1916)

Quotes

* "Time makes fools of us all. Our only comfort is that greater shall come after us." [http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/etbell201499.html]

Notes

References

* Constance Reid. "The Search for E.T. Bell, Also Known as John Taine". Washington, DC, Mathematical Association of America, 1993, ISBN 0-88385-508-9, x, 372p.
*cite book | last=Tuck | first=Donald H. | authorlink=Donald H. Tuck | title=The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy | location=Chicago | publisher=Advent | pages=36 | date=1974|isbn=0-911682-20-1

External links

* [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3742/is_200105/ai_n8931637 Biographical sketch by Constance Reid]
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Persondata
NAME=Bell, Eric Temple
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=mathematician, writer
DATE OF BIRTH=February 7, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH=Peterhead, Scotland
DATE OF DEATH=December 21, 1960
PLACE OF DEATH=Watsonville, California