Mellen Woodman Haskell (March 17, 1863 – January 15, 1948) was an American mathematician, specializing in geometry, group theory, and applications of group theory to geometry.

Education and career

After secondary education at Roxbury Latin School, he received in 1883 his bachelor's degree and in 1885 his M.A. and a Parker Traveling Fellowship from Harvard University. From 1885 to 1889 he studied mathematics at the University of Leipzig and the University of Göttingen, where in 1889 he received, under Felix Klein, his Dr. phil..[1] In 1889 Haskell became an instructor at the University of Michigan.

In 1890 he was hired by the University of California, Berkeley as an assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in 1894, and in 1906 to professor. In 1909 he became the chair of U. C. Berkeley's mathematics department in succession to Irving Stringham, and remained the chair until retiring as professor emeritus in 1933.[2]

Haskell provided a foundation for hyperbolic angle and hyperbolic functions with his article in Bulletin of American Mathematical Society in 1895. In particular, he identified the angle with area of a hyperbolic sector, and showed its invariance under squeeze mapping.

Haskell was an Invited Speaker of the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1924 in Toronto and in 1928 in Bologna.

Selected publications

As translator

References

  1. ^ Parshall, Karen; Rowe, David E. (1994). The Emergence of the American Mathematical Research Community 1876–1900: J. J. Sylvester, Felix Klein, and E. H. Moore. AMS/LMS History of Mathematics 8. Providence/London. pp. 209–210. ISBN 9780821809075.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ^ W. M. Hart, C. A. Noble & Griffith C. Evans (1948) "Mellen Woodman Haskell, University of California: In Memoriam"., via Online Archive of California
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