Jesse Douglas (3 July 1897 – 7 September 1965) was an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

and

Fields Medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award h ...

ist known for his general solution to

Plateau's problem In mathematics, Plateau's problem is to show the existence of a minimal surface with a given boundary, a problem raised by Joseph-Louis Lagrange in 1760. However, it is named after Joseph Plateau who experimented with soap films. The problem ...

Life and career

He was born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, the son of Sarah (née Kommel) and Louis Douglas. He attended

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

as an undergraduate, graduating with honors in Mathematics in 1916. He then moved to

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

as a graduate student, obtaining a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...

in mathematics in 1920. Douglas was one of two winners of the first

s, awarded in 1936. He was honored for solving, in 1930, the problem of Plateau, which asks whether a minimal surface exists for a given boundary. The problem, open since 1760 when

Lagrange Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi Lagrangiacalculus of variations The calculus of variations (or Variational Calculus) is a field of mathematical analysis that uses variations, which are small changes in functions and functionals, to find maxima and minima of functionals: mappings from a set of functions t ...

and is also known as the ''

soap bubble A soap bubble is an extremely thin film of soap or detergent and water enclosing air that forms a hollow sphere with an iridescent surface. Soap bubbles usually last for only a few seconds before bursting, either on their own or on contact wi ...

problem''. Douglas also made significant contributions to the inverse problem of the calculus of variations. The

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meeting ...

awarded him the

Bôcher Memorial Prize The Bôcher Memorial Prize was founded by the American Mathematical Society in 1923 in memory of Maxime Bôcher with an initial endowment of $1,450 (contributed by members of that society). It is awarded every three years (formerly every five year ...

in 1943. Douglas later became a full professor at the

(CCNY), where he taught until his death. At the time CCNY only offered undergraduate degrees and Professor Douglas taught the advanced calculus course. Sophomores (and freshmen with advanced placement) were privileged to get their introduction to

real analysis In mathematics, the branch of real analysis studies the behavior of real numbers, sequences and series of real numbers, and real functions. Some particular properties of real-valued sequences and functions that real analysis studies include conv ...

from a Fields medalist.

Selected papers

* * * * *

Notes

References

*Biography in ''Dictionary of Scientific Biography'' (New York 1970–1990) *Biography in ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (Aug. 2003)

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Douglas, Jesse 1897 births 1965 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians City College of New York faculty Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Differential geometers Fields Medalists Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars Jewish American scientists Mathematical analysts Mathematicians from New York (state) Scientists from New York City Variational analysts Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences

Life and career

Selected papers

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links