Harry Pollard (mathematician)

Summary

Harry Pollard (28 February 1919 – November 20, 1985)[1] was an American mathematician. He received his Ph.D from Harvard University in 1942 under the supervision of David Widder.[2] He then taught at Cornell University, and was Professor of Mathematics at Purdue University from 1961 until his death in 1985. He is known for his work on celestial mechanics, orthogonal polynomials and the n-body problem[1] as well as for the several textbooks he authored or co-authored.[3][4] In the theory of Orthogonal polynomials, Pollard solved a conjecture of Antoni Zygmund, establishing mean convergence of the partial sums in norms for the Legendre polynomials and Jacobi polynomials in a series of three papers in the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. The first of these papers deals with the fundamental case of Legendre polynomials. [5] The end point cases in Pollard's theorem was established by Sagun Chanillo. [6]

Harry Pollard
Born28 February 1919
Died20 November 1985
Alma materHarvard University
Scientific career
FieldsCelestial mechanics
Institutions
Doctoral advisorDavid Widder
Doctoral students

Books

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  • Pollard, Harry; Diamond, Harold G. (1975), The Theory of Algebraic Numbers, Carus Mathematical Monographs, vol. 9 (2nd ed.), MAA. Originally published 1950.[3] 3rd edition, 1998 Dover reprint.[7]
  • Pollard, Harry (1972), Applied Mathematics: An Introduction, Addison-Wesley.[4]
  • Pollard, Harry (1976), Celestial Mechanics, Carus Mathematical Monographs, vol. 18, MAA, ISBN 0-88385-019-2
  • Tenenbaum, Morris; Pollard, Harry (1985), Ordinary Differential Equations, Dover, ISBN 0-486-64940-7.[8]

References

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  1. ^ a b Saari, D. G. (1985), "In Memorian. Professor Harry Pollard. 1919-1985", Celestial Mechanics, 37 (4): 349, Bibcode:1985CeMec..37..349S, doi:10.1007/bf01261623, MR 0846726, S2CID 189832088.
  2. ^ Harry Pollard at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  3. ^ a b Review of The Theory of Algebraic Numbers by Mordan Ward (1951), Math. Mag. 25 (2): 105, JSTOR 3029662.
  4. ^ a b Review of Applied Mathematics: An Introduction by N. D. Kazarinoff (1973), Math. Mag. 46 (3): 164–165, JSTOR 2687976.
  5. ^ Pollard, Harry. (1947). "The Mean Convergence of Orthogonal Series I". Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. 62 (3): 387–403. doi:10.1090/S0002-9947-1947-0022932-1.
  6. ^ Chanillo, Sagun (1981). "On the Weak Behaviour of Partial Sums of Legendre Series". Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. 268 (2): 367–376. doi:10.1090/S0002-9947-1981-0632534-1.
  7. ^ Glass, Darren (July 19, 2011). "Review of The Theory of Algebraic Numbers". MAA Reviews, Mathematical Association of America.
  8. ^ Sawyer, Megan (September 13, 2017). "Review of Ordinary Differential Equations". MAA Reviews, Mathematical Association of America.