Derrick Norman Lehmer
Encyclopedia
Derrick Norman Lehmer was an American
mathematician and number theorist.
He was educated at the University of Nebraska, obtaining a bachelor's degree in 1893 and master's in 1896. Lehmer was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago
in 1900 for a thesis Asymptotic Evaluation of Certain Totient-Sums under the supervision of E. H. Moore
.
He was appointed instructor in mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley in 1900 and married Clara Eunice Mitchell on 12 July 1900 in Decatur, Illinois
. He was promoted to professor at Berkeley in 1918 and continued to teach there until retiring in 1937.
In 1903, he presented a factorization of Jevons
' number (8,616,460,799) at the San Francisco Section of the American Mathematical Society, December 19, 1903.
He published tables of prime number
s and prime factorizations, reaching 10,017,000 by 1909. He developed a variety of mechanical and electro-mechanical factoring and computational devices, such as the Lehmer sieve
, built with his son Derrick Henry Lehmer
.
He is also known for a reversible algorithm that assigns a Lehmer code to every permutation of size n. See section 5.1 in Permutation
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
mathematician and number theorist.
He was educated at the University of Nebraska, obtaining a bachelor's degree in 1893 and master's in 1896. Lehmer was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
in 1900 for a thesis Asymptotic Evaluation of Certain Totient-Sums under the supervision of E. H. Moore
E. H. Moore
Eliakim Hastings Moore was an American mathematician.-Life:Moore, the son of a Methodist minister and grandson of US Congressman Eliakim H. Moore, discovered mathematics through a summer job at the Cincinnati Observatory while in high school. He learned mathematics at Yale University, where he was...
.
He was appointed instructor in mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley in 1900 and married Clara Eunice Mitchell on 12 July 1900 in Decatur, Illinois
Decatur, Illinois
Decatur is the largest city and the county seat of Macon County in the U.S. state of Illinois. The city, sometimes called "the Soybean Capital of the World", was founded in 1823 and is located along the Sangamon River and Lake Decatur in Central Illinois. In 2000 the city population was 81,500,...
. He was promoted to professor at Berkeley in 1918 and continued to teach there until retiring in 1937.
In 1903, he presented a factorization of Jevons
William Stanley Jevons
William Stanley Jevons was a British economist and logician.Irving Fisher described his book The Theory of Political Economy as beginning the mathematical method in economics. It made the case that economics as a science concerned with quantities is necessarily mathematical...
' number (8,616,460,799) at the San Francisco Section of the American Mathematical Society, December 19, 1903.
He published tables of prime number
Prime number
A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that has no positive divisors other than 1 and itself. A natural number greater than 1 that is not a prime number is called a composite number. For example 5 is prime, as only 1 and 5 divide it, whereas 6 is composite, since it has the divisors 2...
s and prime factorizations, reaching 10,017,000 by 1909. He developed a variety of mechanical and electro-mechanical factoring and computational devices, such as the Lehmer sieve
Lehmer sieve
Lehmer sieves are mechanical devices that implement sieves in number theory. Lehmer sieves are named for Derrick Norman Lehmer and his son Derrick Henry Lehmer...
, built with his son Derrick Henry Lehmer
Derrick Henry Lehmer
Derrick Henry "Dick" Lehmer was an American mathematician who refined Édouard Lucas' work in the 1930s and devised the Lucas–Lehmer test for Mersenne primes...
.
He is also known for a reversible algorithm that assigns a Lehmer code to every permutation of size n. See section 5.1 in Permutation
Permutation
In mathematics, the notion of permutation is used with several slightly different meanings, all related to the act of permuting objects or values. Informally, a permutation of a set of objects is an arrangement of those objects into a particular order...
.