Maxime Bôcher | |
---|---|
Born |
Boston, Massachusetts |
August 28, 1867
Died | September 12, 1918 Cambridge, Massachusetts |
(aged 51)
Nationality | American |
Fields | Mathematics |
Institutions | Harvard University |
Alma mater |
Harvard University University of Göttingen |
Doctoral advisor | Felix Klein |
Doctoral students |
William Brenke David R. Curtiss Griffith C. Evans Lester R. Ford Walter B. Ford James W. Glover Charles N. Moore Joseph L. Walsh |
Known for | Differential equations, series, and algebra |
Maxime Bôcher (August 28, 1867 – September 12, 1918) was an American mathematician who published about 100 papers on differential equations, series, and algebra. He also wrote elementary texts such as Trigonometry and Analytic Geometry.Bôcher's theorem, Bôcher's equation, and the Bôcher Memorial Prize are named after him.
Bôcher was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His parents were Caroline Little and Ferdinand Bôcher. Maxime's father was professor of modern languages at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when Maxime was born, and became Professor of French at Harvard in 1872.
Bôcher received an excellent education from his parents and from a number of public and private schools in Massachusetts. He graduated from the Cambridge Latin School in 1883. He received his first degree from Harvard in 1888. At Harvard, he studied a wide range of topics, including mathematics, Latin, chemistry, philosophy, zoology, geography, geology, meteorology, Roman art, and music.
Bôcher was awarded many prestigious prizes, which allowed him to travel to Europe to do research. Göttingen was then the leading mathematics university, and he attended lectures by Klein, Schönflies, Schwarz, Schur and Voigt. He was awarded a doctorate in 1891 for his dissertation Über die Reihenentwicklungen der Potentialtheorie (German for "On the Development of the Potential Function into Series"), he was encouraged to study this topic by Klein. He received a Göttingen university prize for this work.