Nathan Mendelsohn

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Nathan Saul Mendelsohn C.M., FRSC (April 14, 1917 – July 4, 2006) was an American-born mathematician who lived and worked in Canada. Mendelsohn was a researcher in several areas of discrete mathematics, including group theory and combinatorics.

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[edit] Early life and education

Mendelsohn was born in 1917 in Brooklyn, New York City. In 1918, he and his family moved to Toronto, Canada, after a fire destroyed the tenement they were living in.[1] Mendelsohn and his family lived in a house on Euclid Avenue.[2]

Mendelsohn completed all his education at the University of Toronto. In 1938, he was on the University of Toronto team for the first Putnam Competition, along with Irving Kaplansky and John Coleman.[3] The team placed first[4] and each of the three team members won fifty dollars.[5] Mendelsohn completed his Ph.D. dissertation in 1941. It was titled "A Group-Theoretic Characterization of the General Projective Collineation Group", and summarized in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 1944.[6] His supervisor was Gilbert de Beauregard Robinson.

Mendelsohn also begin practicing magic tricks during his graduate studies. He placed second in an International Brotherhood of Magicians contest, behind Johnny Carson.[1]

[edit] Career

During the Second World War, Mendelsohn worked on simulations of artillery and code breaking.[2] As with much of the mathematical work for military purposes during the time, it was classified.

From 1945 to 1947, Mendelsohn was a professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.[7] Mendelsohn's son later remarked that Mendelsohn "understood that, as a Jew, he would never get a permanent position" at Queen's, as the university "already had a Jewish professor in the department."[1]

In 1947, Mendelsohn moved to the the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Mendelsohn stayed at the University of Manitoba until his retirement in 2005.[8]

During early summers at the University of Manitoba, Mendelsohn would travel to Quebec City to teach to supplement his $3,000 annual salary at the University of Manitoba.[1] In 1958, Mendelsohn and Dulmage published the paper "Coverings of biparte graphs", in which the Dulmage-Mendelsohn decomposition is described. Mendelsohn is also remembered for Mendelsohn triple systems.

Mendelsohn was head of the department of mathematics at the University of Manitoba for almost a quarter of a century.[8]

In the early 1960s, Mendelsohn returned to classified mathematics, this time at the RAND Corporation.[1] From 1969 to 1971, Mendelsohn was the president of the Canadian Mathematical Society.

In 1985, Mendelsohn was the subject of a short film form the National Film Board of Canada, titled "An Aesthetic Indulgence".

[edit] Retirement

Mendelsohn retired in from the University of Manitoba in 2005. He died on July 4, 2006 from hepatitis C obtained through tainted blood.

[edit] Awards

In 1957, Mendelsohn was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He won the Henry Marshall Tory Medal in 1979.

On April 15, 1999, Mendelsohn was made a member of the Order of Canada. His citation reads, in part, that Mendelsohn is "known throughout the world as an authority in combinatorics, classical geometry and finite groups".[9]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e Nathan Mendelsohn, Scholar 1917-2006, Globe and Mail. Published July 21, 2006.
  2. ^ a b E. Mendelsohn, "Nathan Mendelsohn: A personal Tribute" CMS Notes May 2003 vol 38 no 5 p. 37-38.
  3. ^ [1] American Mathematical Society
  4. ^ The Mathematical Association of America's William Lowell Putnam Competition
  5. ^ News and Notices, The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 45, No. 5. (May, 1938), pp. 330-332.
  6. ^ N. Mendelsohn, A Group-Theoretic Characterization of the General Projective Collineation Group, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1944 September 15; 30(9): 279–283.
  7. ^ James Mingo, "Report from the Vice-President" CMS Notes May 2003 vol 35 no 4 p. 9-10.
  8. ^ a b R. Padmanabhan, Nathan Saul Mendelsohn Faculty of Science Alumni Newsletter, University of Manitoba, April 2006.
  9. ^ Order of Canada - Nathan Saul Mendelsohn

[edit] External links