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American mathematician
David Eugene Smith
David Eugene Smith
Born
January 21, 1860
Cortland
New York
Died
July 29, 1944
(1944-07-29)
(aged 84)
New York City
, New York
Citizenship
United States
Scientific career
Fields
Mathematics
David Eugene Smith
(January 21, 1860 – July 29, 1944) was an
American
mathematician, educator, and editor.
Education and career
edit
David Eugene Smith is considered one of the founders of the field of mathematics education. Smith was born in Cortland, New York, to Abram P. Smith, attorney and surrogate judge, and Mary Elizabeth Bronson, who taught her young son Latin and Greek.
He attended
Syracuse University
, graduating in 1881 (Ph. D., 1887; LL.D., 1905). He studied to be a lawyer concentrating in arts and humanities, but accepted an instructorship in mathematics at the Cortland Normal School in 1884
where he attended as a young man. While at the Cortland Normal School Smith became a member of the Young Men's Debating Club
(today the
Delphic Fraternity
.) He became a professor at the
Michigan State Normal College
in 1891 (later Eastern Michigan University), the principal at the
State Normal School
in
Brockport, New York
(1898), and a professor of mathematics at
Teachers College, Columbia University
(1901) where he remained until his retirement in 1922
Smith became president of the
Mathematical Association of America
in 1920
and served as the president of the
History of Science Society
in 1927.
He also wrote a large number of publications of various types. He was editor of the
Bulletin
of the
American Mathematical Society
; contributed to other mathematical journals; published a series of textbooks; translated
Felix Klein
's
Famous Problems of Geometry
, Fink's
History of Mathematics
, and the
Treviso Arithmetic
. He edited
Augustus De Morgan
's
A Budget of Paradoxes
(1915) and edited
A Source Book in Mathematics
(1929). He wrote many books on Mathematics which are listed below.
He served as Mathematics Editor of the 14th edition of the
Encyclopedia Britannica
, 1929.
Abacus
and
Algebra
were his own contributions to the first volume.
Revival
edit
In 2020,
Francis Su
published
Mathematics for Human Flourishing
, in which he cites Smith's speech entitled "Religio Mathematici" (Latin: faith of a mathematician), his farewell address delivered to the
Mathematical Association of America
in 1921.
An annotated collection of Smith's writings was published in 2022. It includes postcards (digitized by the Cortland Historical Society), poetry, speeches, and various excerpts from his works. In the foreword,
Francis Su
writes of Smith: "He rekindled the awe I experienced when I first saw the beauty and depth of mathematics, an awe that I—as a mathematician who now takes these things for granted—might have long since forgotten."
10
Works
edit
Books
edit
Plane and Solid Geometry
(1895), with Wooster Woodruff Beman
11
History of Modern Mathematics
(1896;
4th edition, 1906
, reissued as a separate work)
Cornell Historical Math Monographs
The Teaching of Elementary Mathematics
(1900)
Cornell Historical Math Monographs
Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding
(originally by T. Sundara Row, 1893; revised and edited by Smith with Wooster Woodruff Beman, 1901)
Intermediate Arithmetic
(1905)
[1]
The Teaching of Arithmetic
(1909; revised edition, 1913)
The Teaching of Geometry
(1912)
Rara Arithmetica
(1908)
12
The Hindu-Arabic Numerals
(1911), with
Louis Charles Karpinski
13
A Bibliography on the Teaching of Mathematics
(1912), with Charles Goldziher
A History of Japanese Mathematics
(1914), with
Yoshio Mikami
Number Stories of Long Ago
(1919)
Elements of Projective Geometry
(1922), with G. H. Ling & George Wentworth
14
Mathematics
In series
Our Debt to Greece and Rome
. (1923)
Michigan Historical Math Collection
History of Mathematics
: 2 Volumes (1923/5). Reprinted Dover, 1958.
A History of Mathematics in America before 1900
(1934),
15
with
Jekuthiel Ginsburg
Carus Mathematical Monographs
Le comput manuel de Magister Anianus.
(1928)
In the Shadow of the Palms: The Selected Works of David Eugene Smith
(2022), edited by Tristan Abbey
10
Selected articles
edit
Smith, David Eugene (February 1921).
"Among my autographs"
The American Mathematical Monthly
28
(2):
64–
65.
doi
10.2307/2973036
JSTOR
2973036
References
edit
DONOGHUE, EILEEN F. (1998).
"In Search of Mathematical Treasures: David Eugene Smith and George Arthur Plimpton"
Historia Mathematica
25
(4):
359–
365.
doi
10.1006/hmat.1998.2203
"David Eugene Smith, 1920 MAA President | Mathematical Association of America"
An Honorable Record: Some of the alumni of the Young Men's Debating Club. Cortland Evening Standard, Friday, April 12, 1895.
Stanic, George M. A.; Kilpatrick, Jeremy, eds. (2003). "Chapter 36: The U.S. Mathematics Education Research Community".
A history of school mathematics
. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. p. 1644.
ISBN
978-0-87353-471-0
Smith, David Eugene (October 1921).
"Religio Mathematici. Presidential address delivered before the Mathematical Association of America, September 7, 1921"
The American Mathematical Monthly
28
(10):
339–
349.
doi
10.2307/2972153
JSTOR
2972153
The History of Science Society
"The Society: Past Presidents of the History of Science Society"
Archived
December 12, 2013, at the
Wayback Machine
, accessed 4 December 2013
G. B. Mathews
(1916)
A Budget of Paradoxes
From
Nature
97:77 to 79 (#2421)
Karpinski, L. C.
(1932).
"Book Review:
A Source Book in Mathematics
edited by David Eugene Smith"
Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society
38
(5):
333–
335.
doi
10.1090/S0002-9904-1932-05393-9
Su, Francis Edward (2020).
Mathematics for human flourishing
. With Christopher Jackson. New Haven: Yale University Press.
ISBN
978-0-300-23713-9
OCLC
1090441053
Smith, David Eugene
(2022). Abbey, Tristan (ed.).
In the Shadow of the Palms: The Selected Works of David Eugene Smith
. Foreword by Francis Su. Alexandria, Va: Science Venerable Press. pp. xi.
ISBN
978-1-959976-00-4
Wooster Woodruff Beman: Faculty History Project
Archived
July 2, 2017, at the
Wayback Machine
University of Michigan
Jackson, Lambert L. (1910).
'Review:
Rara Arithmetica
, by David Eugene Smith"
Bull. Amer. Math. Soc
16
(6):
312–
314.
doi
10.1090/s0002-9904-1910-01909-1
McKelvey, J. V. (1915).
"Book Review:
The Hindu-Arabic Numerals
Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society
21
(4):
202–
204.
doi
10.1090/S0002-9904-1915-02609-1
Emch, Arnold
(1923).
"Review of
Elements of Projective Geometry
by G. H. Ling, George Wentworth and D. E. Smith"
Bull. Amer. Math. Soc
29
(5): 233.
doi
10.1090/S0002-9904-1923-03710-5
Archibald, R. C.
(1935).
"American Mathematics Before 1900"
Bull. Amer. Math. Soc
41
(9):
603–
606.
doi
10.1090/s0002-9904-1935-06148-8
External links
edit
David Eugene Smith
at Wikipedia's
sister projects
Media
from Commons
Quotations
from Wikiquote
Texts
from Wikisource
Data
from Wikidata
Works by David Eugene Smith
at
Project Gutenberg
Works by or about David Eugene Smith
at the
Internet Archive
History Of Mathematics
Vol. 1
(1923),
Vol. 2
(1925)
History of Modern Mathematics
(1906)
More electronic books by Smith, David Eugene at DML: Digital Mathematics Library
Lao Genevra Simons
David Eugene Smith—In memoriam
Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.
51
, (1945), 40–50.
Finding aid to David Eugene Smith Historical papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Finding aid to David Eugene Smith Professional papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Collection of postcards written by David Eugene Smith and his wife Fanny to their niece in Cortland, digitized by the Cortland County Historical Society.
Academic offices
Preceded by
Charles McLean
Principal of the
Brockport State Normal School
1898 – 1901
Succeeded by
Charles T. McFarlane
Presidents of the
History of Science Society
1924–1949
Lawrence Joseph Henderson
(1924–1925)
James Henry Breasted
(1926)
David Eugene Smith
(1927)
Edgar Fahs Smith
(1928)
Lynn Thorndike
(1929)
Henry Crew
(1930)
William H. Welch
(1931)
Berthold Laufer
(1932)
J. Playfair McMurrich
(1933)
Harvey Williams Cushing
(1934)
Charles Albert Browne, Jr.
(1935–1936)
Chauncey D. Leake
(1937–1938)
Henry E. Sigerist
(1939)
Richard H. Shryock
(1940–1942)
Louis Charles Karpinski
(1943–1944)
Isaiah Bowman
(1944)
Vilhjalmur Stefansson
(1945–1946)
John Farquhar Fulton
(1947–1950)
1950–1999
Harcourt Brown
(1951–1952)
Dorothy Stimson
(1953–1956)
Henry Guerlac
(1957–1960)
I. Bernard Cohen
(1961–1962)
Marshall Clagett
(1963–1964)
Charles Coulston Gillispie
(1965–1966)
C. D. O'Malley
(1967–1968)
Thomas Kuhn
(1969–1970)
Lynn Townsend White Jr.
(1971–1972)
Erwin N. Hiebert
(1973–1974)
John C. Greene
(1975–1976)
Richard S. Westfall
(1977-1978)
Robert P. Multhauf
(1979–1980)
Frederic L. Holmes
(1981–1982)
Gerald Holton
(1983–1984)
Edward Grant
(1985–1986)
William Coleman
(1987)
Mary Jo Nye
(1988–1989)
Stephen G. Brush
(1990–1991)
Sally Gregory Kohlstedt
(1992–1993)
David C. Lindberg
(1994–1995)
Frederick Gregory
(1996–1997)
Albert Van Helden
(1998–1999)
2000–present
Ronald Numbers
(2000–2001)
John Servos
(2002–2003)
Michael Sokal
(2004–2005)
Joan Cadden
(2006–2007)
Jane Maienschein
(2008–2009)
Paul Lawrence Farber
(2010–2011)
Lynn K. Nyhart
(2012–2013)
Angela N. H. Creager
(2014–2015)
Janet Browne
(2016–2017)
Bernard Lightman
(2018–2019)
Jan Golinski
(2020–2021)
Fa-ti Fan
(2022–2023)
Evelynn Hammonds
(2024–2025)
Soraya de Chadarevian
(2026–2027)
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Categories
1860 births
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