Derrick Henry Lehmer
| Derrick Henry Lehmer | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
February 23, 1905 Berkeley, California |
| Died | May 22, 1991 (aged 86) Berkeley, California |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions | UC Berkeley |
| Alma mater | Brown University |
| Doctoral advisor | Jacob Tamarkin |
| Doctoral students |
Tom Apostol Ronald Graham Harold Stark Peter J. Weinberger |
| Known for |
Lehmer's polynomial Lehmer matrix Lehmer sieve Lehmer–Schur algorithm Lehmer's GCD algorithm Lehmer code Lehmer's conjecture Lehmer number Lehmer five Lucas–Lehmer test Lucas–Lehmer test for Mersenne numbers Lucas–Lehmer–Riesel test Pocklington–Lehmer test Lehmer random number generator Lehmer mean |
Derrick Henry "Dick" Lehmer (February 23, 1905 – May 22, 1991) was an American mathematician who refined Édouard Lucas' work in the 1930s and devised the Lucas–Lehmer test for Mersenne primes. Lehmer's peripatetic career as a number theorist, with he and his wife taking numerous types of work in the United States and abroad to support themselves during the Great Depression, fortuitously brought him into the center of research into early electronic computing.
Lehmer was born in Berkeley, California, to Derrick Norman Lehmer, a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, and Clara Eunice Mitchell.
He studied physics and earned a Bachelor degree from UC Berkeley, and continued with graduate studies at the University of Chicago.
He and his father worked together on Lehmer sieves.
During his studies at Berkeley, Lehmer met Emma Markovna Trotskaia, a Russian student of his father's, who had begun with work toward an engineering degree but had subsequently switched focus to mathematics, earning her B.A. in 1928. Later that same year, Lehmer married Emma and, following a tour of Northern California and a trip to Japan to meet Emma's family, they moved by car to Providence, Rhode Island, after Brown University offered him an instructorship.
Lehmer received a Master's degree and a Ph.D., both from Brown University, in 1929 and 1930, respectively; his wife obtained a master's degree in 1930 as well, coaching mathematics to supplement the family income, while also helping her husband type his Ph.D. thesis, An Extended Theory of Lucas' Functions, which he wrote under Jacob Tamarkin.
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