Person: Brink, Raymond Woodard
Raymond Brink was an American mathematician who studied at Kansas State University, Harvard and Paris. He taught at the University of Minnesota though he spent a year in Edinburgh in 1919. He worked on the convergence of series.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Brink entered Kansas State University in 1904 at the remarkably young age of fourteen.
- Following the award of his doctorate Brink studied at the Collège de France and the Sorbonne in Paris spending the academic year 1916-17 financed by the prestigious Sheldon Travelling Fellowship.
- Brink fell in love with France and he had a passion for the country for the rest of his life.
- Brink spent the academic year 1919-20 at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland where he was appointed as a lecturer in Mathematics.
- Except for two further periods of study leave spent in Paris (1924-25 and 1932-33) Brink continued to teach at the University of Minnesota.
- Dinner at the Brink house was a formal event, with conversations often focusing on spelling and grammar.
- After a break from his Chairman role for a few years, Brink became Chairman again in 1939 and continued to lead the department until he retired in 1957.
- These included Professor Raymond W Brink who was Chairman of the department, and had been President of the Mathematical Association of America.
- As this quote indicates, Brink was much involved with the Mathematical Association of America.
- Brink gave his retiring presidential address entitled 'College Mathematics during Reconstruction' in November 1943.
- Finally we give some examples of Brink's papers: A new integral test for the convergence and divergence of infinite series (1918); A new sequence of integral tests for the convergence and divergence of infinite series (1919); The May Meeting of the Minnesota Section (1927); Recent Publications: Reviews: Studies in the History of Statistical Method - With Special Reference to Certain Education Problems (1929); The May Meeting of the Minnesota Section (1930); A Simplified Integral Test for the Convergence of Infinite Series (1931); Recent Publications: Reviews: Differential Equations (1932); The Annual Meeting of the Minnesota Section (1937); College Mathematics During Reconstruction (1944), and A Course in Mathematics for the Purpose of General Education (1947).
- We see from this list that, other than the papers which resulted from his thesis, most of Brink's papers relate to teaching, mathematical education or reports of meetings.
- The greatest contribution that Brink made is considered by most to be his textbooks.
- We noted above that Brink retired from the University of Minnesota in 1957.
- She was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Idaho in 1965 and the university named Brink Hall after her.
Born 4 January 1890, Newark, New Jersey, USA. Died 27 December 1973, La Jolla, California, USA.
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References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
