Basil Gordon (December 23, 1931 – January 12, 2012) was a

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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

, specializing in

number theory Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example ...

and

combinatorics Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and as an end to obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many ...

. He obtained his Ph.D. at

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

under the supervision of Tom Apostol.

Ken Ono Ken Ono (born March 20, 1968) is an American mathematician with fields of study in number theory. He is the STEM Advisor to the Provost and the Marvin Rosenblum Professor of Mathematics at the University of Virginia. Early life and education Ono ...

was one of his students. Gordon is well known for Göllnitz–Gordon identities, generalizing the

Rogers–Ramanujan identities In mathematics, the Rogers–Ramanujan identities are two identities related to basic hypergeometric series and integer partitions. The identities were first discovered and proved by , and were subsequently rediscovered (without a proof) by Srin ...

. He also posed the still-unsolved

Gaussian moat In number theory, the Gaussian moat problem asks whether it is possible to find an infinite sequence of distinct Gaussian prime numbers such that the difference between consecutive numbers in the sequence is bounded. More colorfully, if one imag ...

problem in 1962. Gordon was drafted into the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

, where he worked with the former

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

rocket scientist A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

Wernher von Braun. Gordon's calculations of the gravitational interactions of

earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

, moon, and satellite contributed to the success and longevity of Explorer I, which launched in 1958 and remained in orbit until 1970. He was the step-grandson of General George Barnett and is a descendant of the Gordon family of British

distiller Distillation, also classical distillation, is the process of separating the component substances of a liquid mixture of two or more chemically discrete substances; the separation process is realized by way of the selective boiling of the mixt ...

s, producers of Gordon's Gin.

References

External links

* * *
In memoriam: Basil Gordon, Professor of Mathematics, Emeritus, 1931 – 2012
UCLA Mathematics Department website
Some Tauberian Theorems connected with the Prime Number Theorem
Basil Gordon, PhD thesis, 1956 {{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon, Basil 2012 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Combinatorialists California Institute of Technology alumni 1931 births