Derrick Norman Lehmer (27 July 1867 – 8 September 1938) was an American mathematician and
number theorist.
Education
Lehmer was educated at the
University of Nebraska
A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...
, obtaining his bachelor's degree in 1893 and master's in 1896. His PhD was from the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
in 1900 for a thesis, ''Asymptotic Evaluation of Certain Totient-Sums,'' under the supervision of
E. H. Moore.
Career
He was appointed instructor in mathematics at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
, in 1900 and married Clara Eunice Mitchell on 12 July 1900 in
Decatur, Illinois
Decatur ( ) is the largest city in Macon County, Illinois, United States, and its county seat. The city was founded in 1829 and is situated along the Sangamon River and Lake Decatur in Central Illinois. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 ...
. He was promoted to professor at Berkeley in 1918 and continued to teach there until retiring in 1937.
In 1903, he presented a factorization of
Jevons's number (8,616,460,799) at the San Francisco Section 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, ...
on December 19, 1903.
He published tables of
prime number
A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a Product (mathematics), product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime ...
s and
prime factorization
In mathematics, integer factorization is the decomposition of a positive integer into a product of integers. Every positive integer greater than 1 is either the product of two or more integer factors greater than 1, in which case it is a comp ...
s, reaching 10,017,000 by 1909.
[Lehmer, D. N., ''Factor table for the first ten millions containing the smallest factor of every number not divisible by 2, 3, 5, or 7 between the limits 0 and 10017000,'' Carnegie institution of Washington. Publication no. 105, 1909.] He developed a variety of mechanical and electro-mechanical factoring and computational devices, such as the
Lehmer sieve, built with his son
Derrick Henry Lehmer.
Selected works
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Notes
References
* Albert H. Beiler, ''Recreations in the theory of numbers'', Dover, 1964; chap.XX
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lehmer, Derrick Norman
1867 births
1938 deaths
19th-century American mathematicians
20th-century American mathematicians
American number theorists
University of Nebraska–Lincoln alumni
University of Chicago alumni
University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty