Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
49 lines (40 loc) · 3.54 KB

may.md

File metadata and controls

49 lines (40 loc) · 3.54 KB
Raw

layout: person nodeid: bookofproofs$May categories: history,20th-century parentid: bookofproofs$604 tags: origin-usa orderid: 1915 title: May, Kenneth Ownsworth born: 1915 died: 1977 keywords: kenneth may,may description: Kenneth May was an American mathematician and historian of mathematics best known for founding the journal Historia Mathematica. references: bookofproofs$6909 contributors: @J-J-O'Connor,@E-F-Robertson,bookofproofs

May.jpg

Kenneth May was an American mathematician and historian of mathematics best known for founding the journal Historia Mathematica.

Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):

  • May entered the University of California, Berkeley, intending to major in mathematics but also taking a wide range of subjects.
  • Evans had spotted May's talents soon after becoming the Head of Department and encouraged him to think about research in applying statistics to problems of national economic planning.
  • This was an area that interested both Evans and May, so May studied for his Master's Degree in session 1936-37 with this in mind, taking courses in mathematics, economics and physics.
  • This would provide an excellent background to the topic that May was intending to research for his doctorate.
  • This is the first sign that May was becoming interested in the history of mathematics, the topic for which he is best remembered today.
  • Kenneth and Ruth May spent the winter of 1938-39 in Paris where May continued his studies of statistics and economics at the Sorbonne.
  • In the summer of 1939 they left Paris on a visit to the Soviet Union and May discussed his ideas with academics in Moscow, Kiev and Kharkov.
  • After returning to Berkeley, May was appointed as an assistant at the University teaching courses on financial mathematics, analytic geometry and calculus.
  • May now became fully occupied in Communist activities.
  • May tried to enlist but his Communist affiliations made the authorities reluctant to see him serve in the U.S. army.
  • Sent to Italy with the U.S. Army, May served with great bravery and courage.
  • From 1946 May published on mathematical economics with papers such as The aggregation problem for a one-industry model (1946),Probabilities of certain election results (1948), Economics and technology: Production functions (1950) and Econometric models of the national economy (1952).
  • In 1964 May left Carleton College and spent two years at Berkeley where he was appointed as a visiting scholar and research mathematician.
  • In 1968 May attended the International Congress on the History of Science in Paris and discussed with Rene Taton and Adolph Pavlovich Yushkevich the need for a specialist journal on the history of mathematics.
  • Indeed at the following International Congress on the History of Science in Moscow in 1971, a commission was set up and May was elected as chairman.
  • May was the editor and, remarkably, his efforts had produced about 700 subscribers to this first issue from 39 countries.
  • May wrote the paper What is good history and who should do it?
  • In the same year that Historia Mathematica was founded, May founded the Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Mathematics.
  • Sadly, however, May's health took a turn for the worse.
  • Despite taking these precautions, May died from a heart attack in December 1977.

Born 8 July 1915, Portland, Oregon, USA. Died 1 December 1977, Toronto, Canada.

View full biography at MacTutor