Dunham Jackson (July 24, 1888 in

Bridgewater, Massachusetts Bridgewater is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the city's population was 28,633. The historic town center of Bridgewater is located approximately south of Boston, Massachusetts and approxima ...

– November 6, 1946) was a mathematician who worked within

approximation theory In mathematics, approximation theory is concerned with how function (mathematics), functions can best be approximation, approximated with simpler functions, and with quantitative property, quantitatively characterization (mathematics), characteri ...

, notably with trigonometrical and

orthogonal polynomials In mathematics, an orthogonal polynomial sequence is a family of polynomials such that any two different polynomials in the sequence are orthogonal In mathematics, orthogonality (mathematics), orthogonality is the generalization of the geom ...

. He is known for

Jackson's inequality In approximation theory, Jackson's inequality is an inequality bounding the value of function's best approximation by algebraic or trigonometric polynomials in terms of the modulus of continuity or modulus of smoothness of the function or of it ...

. He was awarded the

Chauvenet Prize The Chauvenet Prize is an annual award given by the Mathematical Association of America in recognition of an outstanding expository article on a mathematical topic. It consists of a prize of $1,000 and a certificate. The Chauvenet Prize was the ...

in 1935. His book ''

Fourier Series A Fourier series () is an Series expansion, expansion of a periodic function into a sum of trigonometric functions. The Fourier series is an example of a trigonometric series. By expressing a function as a sum of sines and cosines, many problems ...

and Orthogonal Polynomials'' (dated 1941) was reprinted in 2004.

Career

After attending the local school in Bridgewater, Jackson went up to Harvard in 1904 at the age of 16 to study mathematics, graduating A.B in 1908 and A.M. in 1909. He then moved to continue his studies at Göttingen for two years with the help of Harvard Fellowships. He returned to Harvard in 1911 as an instructor in mathematics and was promoted Assistant Professor in 1916. During the First World War he became an officer in the Ordnance Department where he produced a booklet of range tables for the artillery. In 1919 he took up a professorship in mathematics at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

, remaining there until his death. While at Minnesota he won the

from the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary edu ...

in 1935 and was inducted as a

Fellow of the American Physical Society The American Physical Society honors members with the designation ''Fellow'' for having made significant accomplishments to the field of physics. The following lists are divided chronologically by the year of designation. * List of fellows of the ...

in 1936.

Private life

He married Harriet Spratt Hulley in 1918; they had two daughters, Anne Hulley Jackson and Mary Eloise Jackson.

Publications

* Dunham Jackson: ''The Theory of Approximation.'' AMS, 1930. * Dunham Jackson: ''Fourier Series and Orthogonal Polynomials.''

Carus Mathematical Monographs The ''Carus Mathematical Monographs'' is a monograph series published by the Mathematical Association of America.Drake, Miriam A. (2003). ''Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science: Lib-Pub.'' CRC Press, Books in this series are intended t ...

, 1941.

References

External links

*
Dunham Jackson
at the Mathematics Genealogy Project.
Jackson's photo
at

site.
Another (bigger one) photo of Jackson
at ''History of Approximation Theory'' site.
National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Dunham 1888 births 1946 deaths People from Bridgewater, Massachusetts 20th-century American mathematicians Presidents of the Mathematical Association of America Mathematicians from Massachusetts Fellows of the American Physical Society University of Minnesota faculty Harvard College alumni