Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Oswald Veblen
Oswald Veblen (24 June 1880 - 10 August, 1960) was an American mathematician. He proved the Jordan curve theorem in 1905.
He was born in Decorah, Iowa, to the mathematician brother of the famed-economist-to-be Thorstein Veblen.
He earned his B.A. at the University of Iowa from 1894 to 1898.
In 1903, he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, with the thesis A System of Axioms for Geometry, and joined the faculty of Princeton University in 1905. In 1928 he began a one-year stint at Oxford University, trading places with G. H. Hardy. In 1932, as one of the organizers of the Institute for Advanced Study, he moved there from Princeton. His Ph.D. students include J. W. Alexander, Alonzo Church, and J. H. C. Whitehead.
He made important contributions in topology and in projective and differential geometries, including results important in modern physics. He was involved in overseeing the World War II work that produced the pioneering ENIAC electronic digital computer.
He died in Brooklyn, Maine in 1960 at age 80.
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