Rudolf Ernest Langer (8 March 1894 – 11 March 1968) was an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

, known for the Langer correction and as a president of 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 ...

.MAA presidents: Rudolf Ernest Langer
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Career

Langer, the elder brother of

William L. Langer William Leonard Langer (March 16, 1896 – December 26, 1977) was an American historian, intelligence analyst and policy advisor. He served as chairman of the history department at Harvard University. He was on leave during World War II as he ...

and

Walter Charles Langer Walter Charles Langer (February 5, 1899 – July 4, 1981) studied psychoanalysis at Harvard University, where he worked as a professor upon completion of his education. He was later employed by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), where in 1943 ...

, earned his PhD in 1922 from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

under

G. D. Birkhoff George David Birkhoff (March21, 1884November12, 1944) was one of the top American mathematicians of his generation. He made valuable contributions to the theory of differential equations, dynamical systems, the four-color problem, the three-body ...

. He taught mathematics at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...

from 1922 to 1925. From 1927 to 1964 he was a mathematics professor at the

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

and, from 1942 to 1952, the chair of the mathematics department. From 1956 to 1963 he was the director of the Army Mathematics Research Center; he was succeeded as director by

J. Barkley Rosser John Barkley Rosser Sr. (December 6, 1907 – September 5, 1989) was an American logician, a student of Alonzo Church, and known for his part in the Church–Rosser theorem in lambda calculus. He also developed what is now called the " Rosser ...

. Langer's doctoral students include Nicholas D. Kazarinoff, Homer Newell, Jr., and

Henry Scheffé Henry Scheffé (April 11, 1907 – July 5, 1977) was an American statistician. He is known for the Lehmann–Scheffé theorem and Scheffé's method. Education and career Scheffé was born in New York City on April 11, 1907, the child of Germ ...

. Langer was a colleague of American physicist

Carl David Anderson Carl David Anderson (September 3, 1905 – January 11, 1991) was an American particle physicist who shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics with Victor Francis Hess for his discovery of the positron. Biography Anderson was born in New York Cit ...

, discoverer of the

positron The positron or antielectron is the particle with an electric charge of +1''elementary charge, e'', a Spin (physics), spin of 1/2 (the same as the electron), and the same Electron rest mass, mass as an electron. It is the antiparticle (antimatt ...

, and was one of the few people to have read

Dirac Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac ( ; 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English mathematician and theoretical physicist who is considered to be one of the founders of quantum mechanics. Dirac laid the foundations for both quantum electrodyna ...

’s work on the anti-electron and made a connection. He sent a short paper to ''

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

'' making connections between the new observations and Dirac’s theories, putting forth imaginative claims such as that the proton is made of a neutron and a positron. His paper was not taken seriously.

Works

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References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Langer, Rudolf Ernest 1894 births 1968 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians Harvard University alumni Presidents of the Mathematical Association of America University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty