6.4 KB · ⇊ 4 parts · ⤓ Micron 6.4 KB · ⤓ HTML 30.3 KB

top

Washington Irving Stringham (December 10, 1847 – October 5, 1909) was an American mathematician born in Yorkshire, New York. He was the first person to denote the natural logarithm as ln ⁡ ⁡ ( x ) {\displaystyle \ln(x)} where x {\displaystyle x} is its argument. The use of ln ⁡ ⁡ ( x ) {\displaystyle \ln(x)} in place of log e ⁡ ⁡ ( x ) {\displaystyle \log _{e}(x)} is commonplace in digital calculators today.

"In place of e log {\displaystyle ^{e}\log } we shall henceforth use the shorter symbol ln {\displaystyle \ln } , made up of the initial letters of logarithm and of natural or Napierian."cite-ref-1[1]

Stringham graduated from Harvard College in 1877. He earned his PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 1880. His dissertation was titled Regular Figures in N-dimensional Spacecite-ref-2[2] under his advisor James Joseph Sylvester.

In 1881 he was in Schwartzbach, Saxony, when he submitted an article on finite groups found in the quaternion algebra.cite-ref-3[3]

Stringham began his professorship in mathematics at Berkeley in 1882.cite-ref-4[4] In 1893 in Chicago, his paper Formulary for an Introduction to Elliptic Functions was read at the International Mathematical Congress held in connection with the World's Columbian Exposition.cite-ref-5[5] In 1900 he was an Invited Speaker at the ICM in Paris.cite-ref-6[6]

• Personal life

• References

• Publications

• External links

Irving married Martha Sherman Day. The couple raised a daughter, Martha Sherman Stringham, (March 5, 1891- August 7, 1967).

cite-note-11. ↑ Charles Smith, Irving Stringham, Elementary algebra for the use of schools and colleges 2nd ed, (The Macmillan Company, New York, 1904) p 437.

cite-note-22. ↑ W.I. Stringham "Regular Figures in N-dimensional Space", American Journal of Mathematics Vol 3 (1880) pp 1-15.

cite-note-33. ↑ I. Stringham (1881) "Determination of the finite quaternion groups", American Journal of Mathematics 4(1–4):345–57 doi:10.2307/2369172

cite-note-44. ↑ "In Memoriam, Dean Stringham" University of California Chronicle Vol XII (University Press, Berkeley, 1909) pp 1–20.

cite-note-55. ↑ "Formulary for an Introduction to Elliptic Functions by Irving Stringham". Mathematical papers read at the International Mathematical Congress held in connection with the World's Columbian Exposition. NY: Macmillan as publisher for the AMS. 1896. pp. 350–366.

cite-note-66. ↑ "Orthogonal transformations in elliptic, or in hyperbolic, space by Irving Stringham". Compte rendu du deuxième Congrès international des mathématiciens tenu à Paris du 6 au 12 Aout 1900. Vol. Tome 2. 1902. pp. 327–338.

• I. Stringham (1879) The Quaternion Formulae for Quantification of Curves, Surfaces, and Solids, and for Barycenters, American Journal of Mathematics 2:205–7.

• I. Stringham (1901) On the geometry of planes in a parabolic space of four dimensions, Transactions of the American Mathematical Society 2:183–214.

• I. Stringham (1905) "A geometric construction for quaternion products", Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 11(8):437–9.

• Irving Stringham at the Mathematics Genealogy Project

• Portrait of W. Irving Stringham from Mathematics Department University of California, Berkeley

• San Francisco Call 6 October 1909 re Irving Stringham death, from California Digital Newspaper Collection.