Hilda Phoebe Hudson
| Hilda Phoebe Hudson | |
|---|---|
 Hilda Phoebe Hudson | |
| Born |
11 June 1881 Cambridge |
| Died |
26 November 1965 Chiswick |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Cambridge and Berlin |
| Occupation | mathematician |
| Known for | Cremona transformation |
| Parent(s) | Professor William Henry Hoare Hudson |
Hilda Phoebe Hudson (June 11, 1881 Cambridge – November 26, 1965 London) was an English mathematician who worked on algebraic geometry, in particular on Cremona transformations. Hudson was interested in the link between mathematics and her religious beliefs.
Life and work
In 1900 Hudson gained a scholarship and entered Newnham College at the University of Cambridge, graduating in 1903, coming 7th equal among the First Class students. After a year of further study at the University of Berlin, she returned to Newnham in 1905, first as lecturer in mathematics and later as Associate Research Fellow. Trinity College Dublin awarded her an ad eundam MA, and later a DSc, in 1906 and 1913, respectively.[1]
She spend the academic year 1912-1913 at Bryn Mawr in the USA, and the years 1913-1917 back in England, this time as lecturer at West Ham Technical Institute. She joined an Air Ministry subdivision undertaking aeronautical engineering research in 1917, where she applied pioneering work on the application of mathematical modelling to aircraft design. She was appointed OBE in 1919. As a distinguished mathematician she was one of the few women of her time to serve on the council of the London Mathematical Society.
Most of Hudson's pure mathematical research was concerned with surfaces and plane curves, her special interest being in Cremona transformations. Her 1916 monograph Ruler and Compasses[2] was well-received as "a welcome addition to the literature on the boundary between elementary and advanced mathematics".[3] Her 454-page 1927 treatise Cremona transformations in plane and space is considered to be her magnum opus.
Books
- Ruler and Compasses, first published as a monograph (Longman's Modern Mathematical Series, 1916) and then included in the compendium Squaring the circle and other monographs (Chelsea n.d.)
- Cremona Transformations in Plane and Space, Cambridge University Press, 1927.
References
- ↑ Hudson, Hilda Phoebe in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- ↑ Hudson, Hilda P. (1916). Ruler and Compasses. London: Longmans, Green and Company.
- ↑ Review of Ruler and Compasses, 1916
External links
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Hilda Phoebe Hudson", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.
- Semple, J. G. (1969), "Hilda Phoebe Hudson", The Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society, 1 (3): 357–359, ISSN 0024-6093, MR 0246741, doi:10.1112/blms/1.3.357
- A list of her papers can be found at Biographies of Women Mathematicians: Hilda Phoebe Hudson