Jesse Douglas (July 3, 1897 – September 7, 1965) was an American mathematician and known for his general solution to Plateau's problem.
Life and career
He was born to a
Jewish family
[ Peter Lax, Mathematician: An Illustrated Memoir, by Reuben Hersh
(American Mathematical Soc. 2014), page 102] in New York City, the son of Sarah (née Kommel) and Louis Douglas. He attended City College of New York as an undergraduate, graduating with honors in Mathematics in 1916. He then moved to Columbia University as a graduate student, obtaining a
PhD in mathematics in 1920.
Douglas was one of two winners of the first ,
Douglas worked at Columbia University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Institute for Advanced Study.
Selected papers
See also
-
Petr–Douglas–Neumann theorem
Notes
-
Biography in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York 1970–1990)
-
Biography in Encyclopædia Britannica (Aug. 2003)
Further reading
-
Themistocles M. Rassias, The Problem of Plateau – A tribute to Jesse Douglas and Tibor Rado (River Edge, NJ, 1992).
-
M. Struwe: Plateau's Problem and the Calculus of Variations,
-
R. Bonnett and A. T. Fomenko: The Plateau Problem (Studies in the Development of Modern Mathematics),
-
M. Giaquinta and S. Hildebrandt: "Calculus of Variations", Volumes I and II, Springer Verlag
External links
