Charles Newton Little

Charles Newton Little (1858–1923) was an American mathematician and civil engineer. He was known for his expertise in knot theory, including the construction of a table of knots with ten or fewer crossings.[1][2]

Little's father was a missionary to Madurai, in India, where Little was born in 1858;[3] his family returned with him to America in 1859.[1] He earned an A.B. from the University of Nebraska in 1879, and continued at Nebraska's Institute of Mathematics and Civil Engineering, where he earned an M.A. in 1884.[1][2] After this, he entered graduate study at Yale University, and completed his Ph.D. in 1885 under the supervision of Hubert Anson Newton, with a dissertation concerning knot theory.[1][2][4]

He returned to the University of Nebraska as an associate professor of civil engineering, and was promoted to full professor in 1889. In 1893 he joined Stanford University as a professor of pure mathematics, after turning down a chair of mathematics at Nebraska.[1] In 1899–1900 he went on leave from Stanford, and traveled to Germany to study mathematics with Felix Klein and David Hilbert.[2][5] He moved again in 1901 to the University of Idaho, as a professor of civil engineering, and in 1911 was appointed as dean of engineering there.[2][5]

He died on September 7, 1923, of heart failure, in Berkeley, California.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "C. N. Little: Professor of Pure Mathematics", The Stanford Daily, November 22, 1893.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Lehmer, D. N. (October 1923), "Charles Newton Little", Science 58 (1503): 299–299, doi:10.1126/science.58.1503.299.
  3. ↑ Birthdate from the Stanford Daily; Lehmer's obituary in Science states the birthdate as 1865.
  4. ↑ Charles Newton Little at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  5. 1 2 University of Idaho General Catalog, vol. XIV, no. 5, June 1919, p. 17.
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