Charles Bradfield Morrey Jr. was born July 23, 1907, in Columbus, Ohio; his father was a professor of bacteriology at Ohio State University, and his mother was president of a school of music in Columbus, therefore it can be said that his one was a family of academicians.[5] Perhaps from his mother's influence, he had a lifelong love for piano,[6] even if mathematics was his main interest since his childhood.[7] He was at first educated in the public schools of Columbus and, before going to the university, he spent a year at Staunton Military Academy in Staunton, Virginia.[5]
In 1933, during his stay at the Department of Mathematics of the University of California, Berkeley as an instructor, he met Frances Eleonor Moss, who had just started studying for her M.A.:[8] they married in 1937[7] and had three children.[9] With summers off the family enjoyed traveling: they crossed the United States by car at least 20 times, visiting many natural wonders, and looked forward to the AMS meetings, held each year in August. They usually spent abroad their sabbatical leaves, and doing so they visited nearly every European country, witnessing many changes succeeding during the period from the 1950s to the 1980s.[8]
Kelley, Lehmer & Robinson (1989, p. 107) describe him as really very gifted for friendship, having a charming sense of humor[17] and being continuously attentive for people, mathematics and musics. His human qualities are described as the complement to his ability in administrative duties and in scientific research:[18] as a confirmation of his skills in scientific research, also Maull (1995a, p. 10) states that he was one of the strongest workers in analysis.
The Charles B. Morrey Jr. Assistant Professorshipedit
In 1985 his widow, Frances Eleonor Morrey, née Ross, established the Charles B. Morrey Jr. Assistant Professorship at the Berkeley Mathematics department, to honor his memory.[19]
Workedit
Research activityedit
Con l'opera di Morrey il metodo diretto del Calcolo delle Variazioni riprendeva il suo cammino ed i problemi esistenziali rimasti aperti trovavano soluzione.[20]
Charles B. Morrey Jr. was a very effective teacher.[13] His book (Morrey 1962) was the forerunner of a sequence of texts on calculus and analytic geometry, written in collaboration with Murray H. Protter. According to Kelley, Lehmer & Robinson (1989, p. 106) and to Maull (1995a, p. 10), these books have had a wide influence on both university and high school teaching of mathematics. Morrey was also a successful advanced level teacher and thesis supervisor: at least 17 Ph.D. dissertations were written under his supervision.[13]
Selected publicationsedit
Morrey, Charles B. Jr. (1928), Some properties of the derivatives of functions, Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University, p. 32. The library file of C. B. Morrey Jr.'s master thesis (M. A. Thesis) at the university library of Ohio State University.
Morrey, Charles B. Jr. (1931), Invariant functions of conservative surface transformations., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. The library file of C. B. Morrey Jr.'s doctoral thesis, at the library of Harvard University.
Morrey, Charles B. Jr. (July 1935), "An Analytic Characterization of Surfaces of Finite Lebesgue Area. Part I", American Journal of Mathematics, 57 (3): 692–702, doi:10.2307/2371197, JFM 61.0733.03, JSTOR 2371197, MR 1507104, Zbl 0012.20404.
Morrey, Charles B. Jr. (April 1936), "An Analytic Characterization of Surfaces of Finite Lebesgue Area. Part II", American Journal of Mathematics, 58 (2): 313–322, doi:10.2307/2371041, JFM 62.0807.03, JSTOR 2371041, MR 1507155, Zbl 0014.10801
Morrey, Charles B. Jr. (1940), "Functions of several variables and absolute continuity, II", Duke Mathematical Journal, 6 (1): 187–215, doi:10.1215/S0012-7094-40-00615-9, JFM 66.1225.01, MR 0001279, Zbl 0026.39401.
Morrey, Charles B. Jr. (1943), "Multiple integral problems in the calculus of variations and related topics", University of California Publications in Mathematics, (New Series), 1: 1–130, MR 0011537, Zbl 0063.04107.
Morrey, Charles B. Jr. (July 1958), "The Analytic Embedding of Abstract Real-Analytic Manifolds", The Annals of Mathematics, Second Series, 68 (1): 159–201, doi:10.2307/1970048, JSTOR 1970048, MR 0099060, Zbl 0090.38401.
Morrey, Charles B. Jr. (1960), "Multiple integral problems in the calculus of variations and related topics", Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa – Classe di Scienze, Serie III, 14 (1): 1–61, MR 0115117, Zbl 0094.08104. Available at NUMDAM.
Morrey, Charles B. Jr. (1962), University Calculus with Analytic Geometry, Reading, Massachusetts: Addison–Wesley, p. 754, reviewed by Hoffman, Stephen (May 1963), "University Calculus with Analytic Geometry. by C. B. Morrey Jr.", The American Mathematical Monthly, 70 (5): 590–592, doi:10.2307/2312108, JSTOR 2312108.
Morrey, Charles B. (1966), Multiple integrals in the calculus of variations, Die Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften, vol. 130, Berlin–Heidelberg–New York: Springer-Verlag, pp. xii+506, ISBN 978-3-540-69915-6, MR 0202511, Zbl 0142.38701.
Morrey, Charles B. Jr. (1968), "Partial Regularity Results for Non-Linear Elliptic Systems", Journal of Mathematics and Mechanics, 17 (7): 649–670, doi:10.1512/iumj.1968.17.17041, MR 0237947, Zbl 0175.11901.
Morrey, Charles B. Jr. (1983), "Griffith Conrad Evans", in National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (ed.), Biographical Memoirs, Biographical Memoirs, vol. 54, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, pp. 126–155, doi:10.17226/577, ISBN 978-0-309-03391-6.
^See Kelley, Lehmer & Robinson (1989, p. 107). Also Maull (1995a, p. 10) alludes to their children, however without giving any detail except the birth year of their first born, i.e. 1941.
^According to Sarah Hallam (see her interview by Maull (1995c, p. 11)) and to Rider (1985, pp. 288–289). In this last reference, the author also describes briefly but comprehensively the events leading to his hiring.
^An English translation reads as:"With the work of Morrey the direct method in the Calculus of Variation found its path and the open existence problems found their solution".
Maull, Lou (1995a), "Donors tell their stories. Charles B. Morrey Jr." (PDF), Berkeley Mathematics Newsletter, Fall 1995, Vol. III (1): 10.
Maull, Lou (1995b), "An interview with Frances Eleonor (Moss) Morrey" (PDF), Berkeley Mathematics Newsletter, Fall 1995, Vol. III (1): 10–11.
Maull, Lou (1995c), "Alumna & Former Staff Establishes Fellowship. An Interview with Miss Sarah Hallam" (PDF), Berkeley Mathematics Newsletter, Fall 1995, Vol. III (1): 11, 16.
National Academy of Sciences (July 15, 1962), "National Academy of Sciences: July 1, 1962" (PDF), PNAS, 48 (7): 1258–1294, doi:10.1073/pnas.48.7.1258, JSTOR 71750, PMC220941, PMID 16590975.
National Academy of Sciences (2011), Morrey, Charles B. Jr., Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, retrieved October 23, 2011.
Mitchell, Janet A., ed. (1980), A Community of Scholars. Faculty and Members 1930–1980(PDF), Princeton, New Jersey: The Institute for Advanced Study, pp. xxii+565, archived from the original (PDF) on November 7, 2017, retrieved June 27, 2016.
Pitcher, Everett (1988), American Mathematical Society centennial publications. Volume I. A History of the Second Fifty Years, American Mathematical Society 1939–1988., Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society, pp. viii+346, ISBN 0-8218-0125-2, MR 1002190, Zbl 0702.01017.
Rider, Robin E. (1985), "An opportune time: Griffith C. Evans and mathematics at Berkeley" (PDF), in Duren, Peter (ed.), A Century of Mathematics in America, Part II, History of Mathematics, vol. 2, Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society, pp. 283–302, MR 1003134, Zbl 0671.01027.
University of California (2004), "Berkeley Citation", Berkeley Awards Program, Berkeley, CA: University of California, Berkeley, retrieved October 23, 2011. A description of the history and the rules of one of the four highest honors that the Berkeley campus bestows, including a list of past recipients Archived June 9, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.
Cesari, Lamberto (1956), Surface Area, Annals of Mathematics Studies, vol. 35, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, pp. x+595, ISBN 0-691-09585-X, MR 0074500, Zbl 0073.04101. The work of Cesari summarizing the theory of surface area, including his own contributions to the subject.
Cesari, Lamberto (1986), "L'opera di Leonida Tonelli e la sua influenza nel pensiero scientifico del secolo", in Montalenti, G.; Amerio, L.; Acquaro, G.; Baiada, E.; et al. (eds.), Convegno celebrativo del centenario della nascita di Mauro Picone e Leonida Tonelli (6–9 maggio 1985), Atti dei Convegni Lincei (in Italian), vol. 77, Roma: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, pp. 41–73, archived from the original on February 23, 2011, retrieved June 27, 2015. "The work of Leonida Tonelli and his influence on scientific thinking in this century" (English translation of the title) is an ample commemorative article, reporting recollections of the Author about teachers and colleagues, and a detailed survey of his and theirs scientific work, presented at the International congress in occasion of the celebration of the centenary of birth of Mauro Picone and Leonida Tonelli (held in Rome on May 6–9, 1985).
Giusti, Enrico (1994), Metodi diretti nel calcolo delle variazioni, Monografie Matematiche (in Italian), Bologna: Unione Matematica Italiana, pp. VI+422, MR 1707291, Zbl 0942.49002, translated in English as Giusti, Enrico (2003), Direct Methods in the Calculus of Variations, River Edge, NJ – London – Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, pp. viii+403, doi:10.1142/9789812795557, ISBN 981-238-043-4, MR 1962933, Zbl 1028.49001.
Fichera, Gaetano (1995), "Tre battaglie perdute da tre grandi matematici italiani", Atti del convegno di studi in memoria di Giuseppe Gemignani. Modena, 20 maggio 1994, Collana di Studi dell'Accademia (in Italian), vol. 11, Modena: Enrico Mucchi Editore on behalf of the Accademia Nazionale di Scienze, Lettere e Arti di Modena, pp. 9–28, MR 1385469. This paper, included in the Proceedings of the Study Meeting in Memory of Giuseppe Gemignani, is an account of the failures of Vito Volterra, Leonida Tonelli and Francesco Severi, when dealing with particular research problems during their career. An English translation of the title reads as:-"Three battles lost by three great Italian mathematicians".
Radó, Tibor (1948), Length and Area, American Mathematical Society Colloquium Publications, vol. XXX, New York: American Mathematical Society, pp. v+572, ISBN 9780821846216, MR 0024511, Zbl 0033.17002.
Morrey, Charles Bradfield (2009), A Guide to the Charles Bradfield Morrey Papers, 1933–1978, Austin, TX: Briscoe Center for American History, retrieved October 9, 2011.