Leonard Carlitz

Leonard Carlitz
Born	December 26, 1907 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died	September 17, 1999 (aged 91) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Residence	U.S.
Nationality	American
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	Duke University
Alma mater	University of Pennsylvania
Doctoral advisor	Howard Mitchell
Doctoral students	Waleed Al-Salam David Roselle (among 44)
Known for	Combinatorics Number theory Polynomial rings prolific publication

Leonard Carlitz (December 26, 1907 – September 17, 1999) was an American mathematician. Carlitz supervised 44 doctorates at Duke University and published over 770 papers.

Chronology

• 1907 Born Philadelphia, PA, USA
• 1927 BA, University of Pennsylvania
• 1930 PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 1930 under Howard Mitchell, who had studied under Oswald Veblen at Princeton
• 1930–31 at Caltech with E. T. Bell
• 1931 married Clara Skaler
• 1931–32 at Cambridge with G. H. Hardy
• 1932 Joined the faculty of Duke University where he served for 45 years
• 1938 to 1973 Editorial Board Duke Mathematics Journal (Managing Editor from 1945.)
• 1939 Birth of son Michael
• 1940 Supervision of his first doctoral student E. F. Canaday, awarded 1940
• 1945 Birth of son Robert
• 1964 First James B. Duke Professor in Mathematics
• 1977 Supervised his 44th and last doctoral student, Jo Ann Lutz, awarded 1977
• 1977 Retired
• 1990 Death of wife Clara, after 59 years of marriage
• 1999 September 17 Died in Pittsburgh, PA

Mathematical work

• The Carlitz module is generalized by the Drinfeld module
• An identity regarding Bernoulli numbers
• Carlitz wrote about Bessel polynomials
• He introduced Al-Salam–Carlitz polynomials.
• Carlitz' identity for bicentric quadrilaterals

Publication

Leonard Carlitz published about 771 technical papers comprising approximately 7,000 pages. The effort to edit his collected works, undertaken originally by Professor John Brillhart, is ongoing.^[1][2]

References

^ Joel V. Brawley, John Brillhart and Henry W. Gould, "Recollections of Leonard Carlitz", Acta Arithmetica, Vol. 152(2012), No. 4, 361–372. ^ Joel V. Brawley, John Brillhart, and Henry W. Gould (editors), "The publications of Leonard Carlitz", Acta Arithmetica. Vol. 152(2012), No. 4, 373–405. Annotated Catalogue of Carlitz's 773 publications.

1. Joel V. Brawley, Brillhart and Henry E. Gould, "Recollections of Leonard Carlitz", Acta Arithmetica, Vol. 152(2012), No. 4, 361–372.
2. Joel V. Brawley, John Brillhart, and Henry W. Gould (editors), "The publications of Leonard Carlitz", Acta Arithmetica. Vol. 152(2012), No. 4, 373–405. Annotated Catalogue of Carlitz's 773 publications.

• Brawley, Joel V. (2000), "In memoriam: Leonard Carlitz (1907–1999)", Finite Fields and Their Applications 6 (3): 203–206, doi:10.1006/ffta.2000.0276, ISSN 1071-5797, MR 1772617
• Brawley, Joel V. (1995), "Dedicated to Leonard Carlitz: the man and his work", Finite Fields and Their Applications 1 (2): 135–151, doi:10.1006/ffta.1995.1011, ISSN 1071-5797, MR 1337739
• Hayes, David R. (2001), "Leonard Carlitz (1907–1999)" (PDF), Notices of the American Mathematical Society 48 (11): 1322–1324, ISSN 0002-9920, MR 1870635
• Howard, F. T. (2000), "In memoriam—Leonard Carlitz", Fibonacci Quarterly 38 (4): 316, ISSN 0015-0517, MR 1775253

External links

• Obituary at Duke's Math Newsletter
• Leonard Carlitz at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Leonard Carlitz", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.
• zbMATH.org author profile