ProofWiki:Mathematicians/Duncan MacLaren Young Sommerville

Scots mathematician (sometimes rendered Duncan M'Laren Young Sommerville) best known for his work in geometry, including non-Euclidean.

A founder, and first secretary, of the New Zealand Astronomical Society.

Nationality

Scots

History

• Born: 24 Nov 1879, Beawar, Rajasthan, India
• 1899: Awarded a scholarship for University of St Andrews in Scotland
• 1902: Started teaching at St Andrews
• 1905: Appointed Lecturer in Mathematics at St Andrews
• 1915: Appointed as Professor of Pure and Applied Mathematics at Victoria College Wellington, New Zealand
• 1919: Began to tutor A.C. Aitken with a weekly correspondence
• Died: 31 Jan 1934, Wellington, New Zealand

Theorems and Definitions

• 1905: proved that there are eleven Archimedean tilings

Books and Papers

• 1911: Bibliography of non-Euclidean Geometry, including the Theory of Parallels, the Foundations of Geometry and Space of n Dimensions
• 1914: Elements of Non-Euclidean Geometry
• 1924: Analytical Conics
• 1929: Introduction to Geometry of n dimensions
• 1934: Three Dimensional Geometry

Also see

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "Duncan MacLaren Young Sommerville": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive