Eric Temple Bell

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Eric Temple Bell

Born	February 7, 1883 Peterhead, Scotland
Died	December 21, 1960 Watsonville, California
Residence	United States of America
Nationality	Scottish
Field	Mathematician
Institution	University of Washington California Institute of Technology
Alma mater	Stanford University Columbia University (Ph.D.)
Academic advisor	Frank Nelson Cole Cassius Keyser
Notable students	Howard Percy Robertson Morgan Ward
Known for	Number theory Bell series Bell polynomials Bell numbers
Notable prizes	Bôcher Memorial Prize (1924)

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 USA from 1903 until his death. He published his non-fiction under his given name and his fiction as John Taine.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Writing career 3 Works 3.1 Non-fiction books 3.2 Scholarly papers 3.3 Novels 4 Poetry 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Biography

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 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.

[edit] Writing career

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 biographic, non-mathematical details Bell included. He wrote numerous science fiction novels under the pseudonym John Taine, which were well received at the time of their publication, but have been largely forgotten now. In 1993 Constance Reid wrote a biography, The Search for E.T. Bell, which portrayed its subject as secretive, eccentric and somewhat mysterious.

[edit] Works

[edit] Non-fiction books

• An Arithmetical Theory of Certain Numerical Functions, Seattle Washington, The University, 1915, 50p.
• 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.
• Queen Of The Sciences

[edit] Scholarly papers

• [This subsection needs attention.]

[edit] Novels

• The Purple Sapphire (1924)
• The Gold Tooth (1927)
• Quayle's Invention (1927)
• Green Fire (1928)
• The Greatest Adventure (1929)
• The Crystal Horde (1930)
• 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)

[edit] Poetry

• The Singer (1916)

[edit] 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.
• Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent, 36. ISBN 0-911682-20-1. 

[edit] External links

• Biographical sketch by Constance Reid
• O'Connor, John J., and Edmund F. Robertson. "Eric Temple Bell". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
• Eric Temple Bell at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• Eric Temple Bell at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

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