Bonnie Madison Stewart (July 10, 1914 – April 15, 1994) was a professor of mathematics at

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State o ...

from 1940 to 1980. He earned his Ph.D. from the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

in 1941, under the supervision of Cyrus Colton MacDuffee.

Contributions

Number theory

In 1952, the first edition of his book, ''Theory of Numbers'', was published.Review of ''Theory of Numbers'' by H. Bergström, . Stewart's contributions to number theory also include a complete characterization of the practical numbers in terms of their factorizations, which he published in 1954, a year before

Wacław Sierpiński Wacław Franciszek Sierpiński (; 14 March 1882 – 21 October 1969) was a Polish mathematician. He was known for contributions to set theory (research on the axiom of choice and the continuum hypothesis), number theory, theory of functions ...

's independent discovery of the same result.

Geometry

In 1970 he published a book, '' Adventures among the toroids. A study of orientable polyhedra with regular faces'', in which he discussed what are now called Stewart toroids. The book was handwritten in

calligraphy Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an e ...

with many formulas and illustrations. Like the

Platonic solid In geometry, a Platonic solid is a Convex polytope, convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional space, three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the face (geometry), faces are congruence (geometry), congruent (id ...

Archimedean solid The Archimedean solids are a set of thirteen convex polyhedra whose faces are regular polygon and are vertex-transitive, although they aren't face-transitive. The solids were named after Archimedes, although he did not claim credit for them. They ...

s, and

Johnson solid In geometry, a Johnson solid, sometimes also known as a Johnson–Zalgaller solid, is a convex polyhedron whose faces are regular polygons. They are sometimes defined to exclude the uniform polyhedrons. There are ninety-two Solid geometry, s ...

s, the Stewart polyhedra have

regular polygon In Euclidean geometry, a regular polygon is a polygon that is Equiangular polygon, direct equiangular (all angles are equal in measure) and Equilateral polygon, equilateral (all sides have the same length). Regular polygons may be either ''convex ...

s as faces. The first three categories are all convex, whereas Stewart toroids have polygonal-faced tunnels."Bonnie Stewarts Hohlkörper"
by Christoph Pöppe, Spektrumdirekt (website of the German edition of

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

Selected publications

* B. M. Stewart, ''Theory of Numbers'', Macmillan, 1952. 2nd ed., Macmillan, 1964. *. * B. M. Stewart, '' Adventures Among the Toroids'' (1970) This 5"x13" edition was self-published by the author (printed by The John Henry Company) and has no ISBN. * B. M. Stewart, ''Adventures Among the Toroids'', Revised Second Edition (1980) 11"x8.5". , converted much later to

References

External links

Stewart Toroids (Toroidal Solids with Regular Polygon Faces)

Stewart toroids
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stewart, Bonnie 1914 births 1994 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Michigan State University faculty