Bliss

Gilbert Ames Bliss

Born: 9 May 1876 in Chicago, Illinois, USA
Died: 8 May 1951 in Harvey, Illinois, USA

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Gilbert Bliss was one of the first mathematicians from the USA to make an important contribution without receiving a training in Europe. Educated at Chicago, he was to return there in 1908, after appointments at Minnesota (1900-1902), Chicago (1902-1904), Missouri (1905) and Princeton (1905-1908), and remained at Chicago until he retired.

Bliss worked on ballistics during World War I and designed new firing tables for artillery. His book Mathematics for Exterior Ballistics (1944) was based on this work. Bliss also worked on the calculus of variations and produced a major book, Lectures on the Calculus of Variations , on the topic in 1946. He played a major role in mathematics in the USA during the last 50 years of his life.

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  3. L M Graves, Gilbert Ames Bliss 1876-1951, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 58 (1952), 251-264.
  4. S MacLane, Gilbert Ames Bliss (1876-1951), Yearbook of the American Philosophical Society for 1951 , 288-291. 
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