Eisenhart

Luther Pfahler Eisenhart

Born: 13 Jan 1876 in York, Pennsylvania, USA
Died: 28 Oct 1965 in Princeton, New Jersey, USA

Previous (Chronologically) Next     Biographies Index

Previous ( Alphabetically) Next          Welcome page
Eisenhart was a student at Gettysburg College from 1892 until 1896. After teaching in a school for a year he undertook graduate study at Johns Hopkins University. He obtained a doctorate in 1900 for a thesis entitled Infinitesimal deformations of surfaces. This work was heavily influenced by Darboux's treatise on the subject and he received little supervision for his doctorate.

Eisenhart spent most of his career at Princeton where he worked from 1923 until he retired in 1945. There are two stages in his work although it is all in differential geometry. The first stage continued his doctoral work studying deformations of surfaces.

The second stage started after 1921 when Eisenhart, prompted by Einstein's general theory of relativity and the related geometries, studied generalisations of Riemannian geometry. He published Non-Riemannian Geometry in 1927.

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. S Lefschetz, Luther Pfahler Eisenhart, Biographical Memoirs, National Academy of Science 40 (1969), 69-90. 
Previous (Chronologically) Next     Biographies Index

Previous ( Alphabetically) Next          Welcome page

History Topics Index              Famous curves index

Chronologies                           Birthplace Map

Mathematicians of the day  Anniversaries for the year

Search Form   Simple Search Form   Search Suggestions
JOC/EFR March 1996