Clifford John Earle, Jr. (November 3, 1935 June 12, 2017) was an American mathematician who specialized in

complex variable Complex analysis, traditionally known as the theory of functions of a complex variable, is the branch of mathematical analysis that investigates functions of complex numbers. It is helpful in many branches of mathematics, including algebra ...

s and

Teichmüller space In mathematics, the Teichmüller space T(S) of a (real) topological (or differential) surface S, is a space that parametrizes complex structures on S up to the action of homeomorphisms that are isotopic to the identity homeomorphism. Teichmülle ...

Biography

Earle was born in

Racine, Wisconsin Racine ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Racine County, Wisconsin, United States. It is located on the shore of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Root River. Racine is situated 22 miles (35 km) south of Milwaukee and approximately 60 ...

in 1935. He received his bachelor's degree from

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a private liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeducational colleges in the United States. It was established as ...

in 1957, his master's degree from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 1958, and his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in 1962 under

Lars Ahlfors Lars Valerian Ahlfors (18 April 1907 – 11 October 1996) was a Finnish mathematician, remembered for his work in the field of Riemann surfaces and his text on complex analysis. Background Ahlfors was born in Helsinki, Finland. His mother, Si ...

with thesis ''Teichmüller Spaces of Groups of the Second Kind''. From 1963 to 1965 he was at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

. In 1965 he became an assistant professor and in 1969 a full professor at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to ...

. From 1976 to 1979 he was the chair of the mathematics department at Cornell. Earle's research dealt with

s (i.e. moduli spaces of

Riemann surface In mathematics, particularly in complex analysis, a Riemann surface is a connected one-dimensional complex manifold. These surfaces were first studied by and are named after Bernhard Riemann. Riemann surfaces can be thought of as deformed ve ...

s) and the related theories of

quasiconformal mapping In mathematical complex analysis, a quasiconformal mapping, introduced by and named by , is a homeomorphism between plane domains which to first order takes small circles to small ellipses of bounded eccentricity. Intuitively, let ''f'' : '' ...

s (following Ahlfors and

Lipman Bers Lipman Bers ( Latvian: ''Lipmans Berss''; May 22, 1914 – October 29, 1993) was a Latvian-American mathematician, born in Riga, who created the theory of pseudoanalytic functions and worked on Riemann surfaces and Kleinian groups. He was also k ...

) and Kleinian groups. With

James Eells James Eells (October 25, 1926 – February 14, 2007) was an American mathematician, who specialized in mathematical analysis. Biography Eells studied mathematics at Bowdoin College in Maine and earned his undergraduate degree in 1947. After ...

in 1967 he mathematically described, for any compact Riemann surface X, the homotopy types of spaces of diffeomorphisms of X and thus a new characterization of the Teichmüller space of X. In 1969 Earle and Eells extended the 1967 result to non-orientable surfaces, and in 1970 Earle and Schatz extended the 1967 result to surfaces with boundary. Earle was a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

for the academic year 1974/75. In 2012 he was elected a Fellow of 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, meetings ...

. He was married in 1960 and had two children and two grandchildren. He died at a hospice in

Ithaca, New York Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York (state), New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County, New York, Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca m ...

on June 12, 2017.

Selected works

* * * * * *with

Irwin Kra Irwin Kra (born January 5, 1937) is an American mathematician, who works on the function theory in complex analysis. Life and work Kra studied at Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (bachelor's degree in 1960) and at Columbia University, where h ...

, S. L. Krushkal´ ''Holomorphic motions and Teichmüller spaces'',

Transactions of the American Mathematical Society The ''Transactions of the American Mathematical Society'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of mathematics published by the American Mathematical Society. It was established in 1900. As a requirement, all articles must be more than 15 ...

343, 1994, pp. 927–948. *with Kra ''On sections of some holomorphic families of closed Riemann surfaces'', Acta Mathematica 137, 1976, 49-79 *''On holomorphic families of pointed Riemann Surfaces'',

Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society The ''Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society'' is a quarterly mathematical journal published by the American Mathematical Society. Scope It publishes surveys on contemporary research topics, written at a level accessible to non-experts. ...

, 79, 1973, pp. 163–166 *''The Teichmüller space of an arbitrary Fuchsian group'';

, 70, 1964, 669-701 *with Frederick P. Gardiner ''Geometric isomorphisms between infinite dimensional Teichmüller spaces'', Transactions AMS, 348, 1996, pp. 1163–1190

Sources

*Y. Jiang, S. Mitra (eds.): Quasiconformal Mappings, Riemann Surfaces, and Teichmüller Spaces, AMS Special Session held in honor of Clifford Earle Jr., Syracuse 2010, Contemporary Mathematics, AMS 2012

References

External links

Clifford Earle's homepage, Cornell University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Earle, Clifford John 1935 births 2017 deaths Swarthmore College alumni Harvard University alumni Cornell University faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society People from Racine, Wisconsin Mathematicians from Wisconsin Complex analysts 20th-century American mathematicians