Lillian Rosanoff Lieber (July 26, 1886 in Nicolaiev,

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

– July 11, 1986 in

Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

) was a Russian-American mathematician and popular author."Robert Jantzen's webpage on Lieber"
/ref> She often teamed up with her illustrator husband, Hugh Gray Lieber, to produce works.

Life and career

Early life and education

Lieber was one of four children of Abraham H. and Clara (Bercinskaya) Rosanoff. Her brothers were Denver publisher Joseph Rosenberg, psychiatrist Aaron Rosanoff, and chemist Martin André Rosanoff. Aaron and Martin changed their names to sound more Russian and less Jewish."Paul Dry, Publisher of her reissued books"
/ref> Lieber moved to the US with her family in 1891. She received her A.B. from

Barnard College Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...

in 1908, her M.A. from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

in 1911, and her Ph.D. in chemistry from

Clark University Clark University is a private research university in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1887 with a large endowment from its namesake Jonas Gilman Clark, a prominent businessman, Clark was one of the first modern research uni ...

in 1914, under Martin's direction; at Clark,

Solomon Lefschetz Solomon Lefschetz (; 3 September 1884 – 5 October 1972) was a Russian-born American mathematician who did fundamental work on algebraic topology, its applications to algebraic geometry, and the theory of non-linear ordinary differential equatio ...

was a classmate. She married Hugh Gray Lieber on October 27, 1926.

Career

After teaching at

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...

from 1908 to 1910, and in the

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

high school system (1910–1912, 1914–1915), she became a Research Fellow at

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh language, Welsh: ) is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as a ...

from 1915 to 1917; she then went on to teach at

Wells College Wells College was a private liberal arts college in Aurora, New York, a village in the Finger Lakes region of the state. From its founding in 1868 until it became coeducational in 2005, Wells was a women's college. The college maintained acad ...

from 1917 to 1918 as Instructor of Physics (also acting as head of the physics department), and at the Connecticut College for Women (1918 to 1920). She joined the mathematics department at

Long Island University Long Island University (LIU) is a private university in Brooklyn and Brookville, New York, United States. The university enrolls over 16,000 students and offers over 500 academic programs at its main campuses, LIU Brooklyn and LIU Post on Long I ...

(LIU) in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, New York (

LIU Brooklyn LIU Brooklyn is a private university in Brooklyn, New York. It is the original unit and first of two main campuses of the private Long Island University system. Campus LIU Brooklyn is located at the intersection of Flatbush and DeKalb Aven ...

) in 1934, became department chair in 1945 (taking over from Hugh when he became Professor, and Chair, of Art at LIU ), and was made a full professor in 1947, until her retirement in 1954; she was appointed director of LIU's Galois Institute of Mathematics (later the Galois Institute of Mathematics and Art) (named for

Évariste Galois Évariste Galois (; ; 25 October 1811 – 31 May 1832) was a French mathematician and political activist. While still in his teens, he was able to determine a necessary and sufficient condition for a polynomial to be solvable by Nth root, ...

) in 1934. Over her career she published some 17 books, which were written in a unique, free-verse style and illustrated with whimsical line drawings by her husband. Her highly accessible writings were praised by no less than

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

Cassius Jackson Keyser Cassius Jackson Keyser (15 May 1862 – 8 May 1947) was an American mathematician of pronounced philosophical inclinations. Life Keyser's initial higher education was at North West Ohio Normal School (now Ohio Northern University), then became ...

Eric Temple Bell Eric Temple Bell (7 February 1883 – 21 December 1960) was a Scottish-born mathematician, educator and science fiction writer who lived in the United States for most of his life. He published non-fiction using his given name and fiction ...

, and

S. I. Hayakawa Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa (July 18, 1906 – February 27, 1992) was a Canadian-born American academic and politician of Japanese ancestry. A professor of English, he served as president of San Francisco State University and then as U.S. Senator f ...

. Concerning her book, '' The Education of T. C. MITS'',

Dorothy Canfield Fisher Dorothy Canfield Fisher (February 17, 1879 – November 9, 1958) was an educational reformer, social activist, and best-selling American author in the early 20th century. She strongly supported women's rights, racial equality, and lifelong educat ...

said:

This is quite different from any other book you ever bought... full of mathematics and full of humor... also full of a deep, healing philosophy of life, reassuring, strengthening, ndhumane..."Bookjacket of the 1944 W. W. Norton Edition of ''The Education of T. C. MITS''

She edited several volumes of Galois lectures, including Martin's ''A Practical Simplification of the Method of Least Squares'', several talks by

Alonzo Church Alonzo Church (June 14, 1903 – August 11, 1995) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, logician, and philosopher who made major contributions to mathematical logic and the foundations of theoretical computer science. He is bes ...

, and ''Lattice Theory'' by

Garrett Birkhoff Garrett Birkhoff (January 19, 1911 – November 22, 1996) was an American mathematician. He is best known for his work in lattice theory. The mathematician George Birkhoff (1884–1944) was his father. Life The son of the mathematician Ge ...

. Although Lieber retired from Long Island University in 1954, she continued to write and publish into the 1960s.

Personal obscurity

Few details of Lillian Lieber's life and career have survived, even at Long Island University. She died in Queens, New York just weeks shy of her 100th birthday. She came from a well-educated Jewish family. Details can be found in the out of print book, ''Yesterday'', that was written by her cousin Miriam Shomer Zunser in the 1930s.

Unusual typography

In addition to enlivening her books with illustrations (or "psyquaports" ) by her husband, Hugh Gray Lieber (who was head of the Department of Fine Arts at Long Island University), Lillian often chose an unusual scheme of typography which is self-explained in this example from her Preface to ''The Education of T. C. MITS'': This is not intended to be
free verse.
Writing each phrase on a separate line
facilitates rapid reading,
and everyone
is in a hurry
nowadays. T.C. MITS was an acronym for "The Celebrated Man In The Street," a character who, like

George Gamow George Gamow (sometimes Gammoff; born Georgiy Antonovich Gamov; ; 4 March 1904 – 19 August 1968) was a Soviet and American polymath, theoretical physicist and cosmologist. He was an early advocate and developer of Georges Lemaître's Big Ba ...

Mr Tompkins Mr Tompkins is the title character in a series of four popular science books by the physicist George Gamow, which were published from 1940. The books are structured as a series of dreams in which Mr Tompkins enters alternative worlds where the phy ...

, served as a device for bringing concepts in higher mathematics and physics to the general public. The MITS character was central to Lieber's populist approach to education, and she often laced her expositions with passages extolling the virtues of the democratic system.

"The Lillian Lieber Standard"

In her book, ''The Einstein Theory of Relativity'', Lillian Lieber stated her views on the inclusion of mathematics in books intended for "the celebrated man r womanin the streets:"

...just enough mathematics to HELP and NOT to HINDER the lay reader... Many 'popular' discussions of Relativity, without any mathematics at all, have been written. But we doubt whether even the best of these can possibly give to a novice an adequate idea of what it is all about.... On the other hand, there are many ooks on relativitythat are accessible to experts only."

The Cavendish Press in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has adopted Lillian's rule of thumb with some elaboration.Cavendish Press Web Site, elaboration of th
Lillian Lieber Standard

Works

Although her works were broadly influential (including a special paperback edition of ''The Education of T. C. MITS'' that was circulated to American servicemen during World War II), they remained out of print for decades. Starting in 2007, publishe
Paul Dry Books
has reissued ''The Education of T.C. MITS'', ''Infinity'', and ''The Einstein Theory of Relativity''. *1931 ''Non-Euclidean Geometry'', Academy Press. *1932 ''Galois and the Theory of Groups'', Science Press Printing Company, Lancaster, PA. *1936 ''The Einstein Theory of Relativity'', Science Press Printing Company, Lancaster, PA. *1940 ''Non-Euclidean Geometry; or, Three Moons in Mathesis'', Science Press Printing Company, Lancaster, PA. *1942 ''The Education of T. C. MITS'', Galois Institute of Mathematics and Art, Brooklyn, NY.. *1944 ''The Education of T. C. MITS'', W. W. Norton & Company, NY, (Revised and Enlarged edition) *1945 ''The Einstein theory of Relativity'',

Farrar & Rinehart Farrar & Rinehart (1929–1946) was a United States book publishing company founded in New York. Farrar & Rinehart enjoyed success with both non-fiction and novels, notably, the landmark Rivers of America Series and the first ten books in the Ne ...

, NY & Toronto. ''(Part I of this edition is the same material published in 1936. Part II was new in this edition.)'' *1946 ''Modern Mathematics for T. C. Mits, The Celebrated Man in the Street'', G. Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1st London Edition. *1946 ''Take a Number: Mathematics for the Two Billion'', The Jacques Cattell Press, Lancaster, PA. *1947 ''Mits, Wits and Logic'', (1st Edition) W. W. Norton & Company, NY. *1949 ''The Einstein Theory of Relativity'', D. Dobson, London. *1953, 2008 ''Infinity: Beyond the Beyond the Beyond'', Edited & Foreword by

Barry Mazur Barry Charles Mazur (; born December 19, 1937) is an American mathematician and the Gerhard Gade University Professor at Harvard University. His contributions to mathematics include his contributions to Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem in ...

, Paul Dry Books, Rinehart, NY. *1954 ''Mits, Wits, and Logic'', (Revised Edition) Galois Institute of Mathematics and Art, Brooklyn, NY. *1956 ''Human Values of Modern Mathematics a Book of Essays'', Galois Institute of Mathematics and Art, Brooklyn, NY. *1959 ''Lattice Theory: The Atomic Age in Mathematics'', Galois Institute of Mathematics and Art, Brooklyn, NY. *1960 ''Mits, Wits, and Logic'', (3d Edition) W. W. Norton & Company, NY. *1961 ''Human Values and Science, Art and Mathematics'', (1st Edition) W. W. Norton & Company, NY. *1961 ''Galois and the Theory of Groups: A Bright Star in Mathesis'', Galois Institute of Mathematics and Art, Brooklyn, NY. *1963 ''Mathematics: First S-t-e-p-s'', F. Watts, NY. *2007 ''The Education of T. C. MITS: What Modern Mathematics Means to You'', Foreword by Barry Mazur, Paul Dry Books, Philadelphia, PA. *2008 ''The Einstein theory of Relativity: A Trip To the Fourth Dimension'', Paul Dry Books, Philadelphia, PA. *2017 ''Take a Number: Mathematics for the Two Billion'',

Dover Publications Dover Publications, also known as Dover Books, is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward and Blanche Cirker. It primarily reissues books that are out of print from their original publishers. These are often, but not always, book ...

, Mineola, NY.

Notes

External links

Photos of Lillian Lieber and her husband, Hugh LieberImage of a letter referencing the Armed Services Edition of ''The Education of T. C. MITS''.
* ttp://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lieber-lillian-r Biography {{DEFAULTSORT:Lieber, Lillian 1886 births Mathematics and culture Ukrainian mathematics educators American mathematics educators Ukrainian women educators American women educators Mathematics writers 20th-century American mathematicians 1986 deaths Ukrainian Jews Ukrainian women mathematicians 20th-century Ukrainian mathematicians American Jews 20th-century American women scientists 20th-century American women mathematicians Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States Wells College faculty