Edwin Ford Beckenbach was born 18 Jul 1906 in Oak Cliff, Dallas County, Texas, and died 05 Sep 1982 in Syracuse, New York, having suffered a stroke shortly after finishing a tennis match. He married Madelene Shelby Simons 30 Aug 1933 in the garden of her parent's home in Bay City, Matagorda, Texas. She was born 28 Mar 1913 in Bay City, Matagorda, Texas, and died 12 Sep 1985 in Longview, Gregg County, Texas. They were divorced in 1960. He married second, Alice Judson Curtiss 24 Jun 1960 in Juarez, Mexico.
In 1982, Ed Beckenbach was selected to receive the 1983 Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics from the Mathematical Association of America. The award was presented posthumously in Denver, Colorado in January of 1983. Fortunately, he had been informed that he was to receive the award and in conjunction with it, he was asked to submit a biography of himself. This was written on 30 July 1982, about five weeks before his death. In it he describes something of his early life:
"It's not particularly easy to write about oneself, but here goes. Much of this is just peripheral information for you, especially the first part, though you are welcome to use any of it as you see fit. The main thing, I think, is to construct a brief and interesting, but factual, story for the reader. I won't try to be brief, but you should.
"My paternal grandparents both came to America from Germany, my grandfather when he was seventeen to escape Bismarck's conscription, and my grandmother when she was four.
"My mother, of English descent, was orphaned at two years of age and affectionately raised by a family named Ford – hence my middle name – who ultimately had a half-dozen children of their own.
"My father was a skilled laborer, a harness-making leather worker.
"Neither of my parents went to school beyond the fourth grade (not uncommon in those days), though both were deeply interested in education. My father, an avid reader, was quite a civic leader, working for improvements in parks, paving, education, and labor conditions. I think my own orientation toward publications stems from seeing articles of his in the Journal of the United Leather-Workers Unions of America.
"Born on July 18, 1906, in Dallas, Texas, the fourth of five siblings (my three sisters have died; my brother, Col. C.G. Beckenbach, lives in Tucson), I went to Reagan Elementary School (salutatorian) and Oak Cliff (now Adamson) High School (valedictorian). My trigonometry report card indicates the direction of my early learning.
"Graduating from high school at midyear, I worked in a bank for about six months before going to Rice in the fall of 1924. There I got my B.A. in 1928, M.A. in 1929, and Ph.D. in 1931.
"I largely worked my way through Rice, waiting tables, selling pop at football games, checking hats at dances, grading papers, assisting in the freshman physics laboratory, and tutoring students. For a long while, I lived in the home of a prominent Houston judge, teaching math (including geometry!) to their sightless son. As a graduate student, I was a Teaching Fellow.
"Also, at Rice, I played on and captained the tennis team and later was its coach. (The Rice yearbooks of that time contain pictures with legends such as, "Beckenbach socks one.")
"The mathematics professors at Rice were then Evans, Ford, and Bray, whose initials, in that order, seemed auspicious to me. There was also a succession of visitors: Mandelbrojt, Vasilesco, Menger, Rado, etc. Rado considerably influenced my own work, though Lester R. Ford, Sr., a wonderful teacher, was my doctoral thesis supervisor.
"After getting my Ph.D. at Rice in 1931, I was a National Research Fellow (Princeton, Ohio State, Chicago), then Instructor back at Rice, 1933-40; Assistant Professor, Michigan, 1940-42, Associate Professor, Texas, 1942-45; Professor, UCLA, 1945-74; Emeritus, 1974- . Also Consultant (Mathematics Editor), RAND Corporation, 1949-63; Member, Institute for Advanced Study, 1951-52; Guggenheim Fellow (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), 1958-1959. But you can get all of that and more from the enclosed copy of a recent write-up in Who's Who in America."
John W Green, Ernst Straus, and Kirby Baker, colleagues of Beckenbach who wrote an obituary of him, described his major contributions to the University of California at Los Angeles:-
"At UCLA, he was a leader in developing the graduate program, from the moment of his arrival. The first Ph.D. in Mathematics at UCLA was awarded in 1947 to a student of his (jointly with W T Puckett). He also was Acting Chairman of the Mathematics Department for a year. In addition, he made two very important special contributions. First, he almost single-handedly brought to bear the influence that caused the creation in 1948 of the Institute for Numerical Analysis on the UCLA campus. This was a branch of the National Bureau of Standards devoted to computing and the construction and use of computing machines. Its SWAC computing machine, built at UCLA, was for a number of years one of the half dozen most powerful computers in the world and was one of the original nodes of the computer network that eventually grew into the internet. Second, he was (together with Frantisek Wolf, of Berkeley) a main influence in the establishment, in 1951, of the Pacific Journal of Mathematics, a major international mathematical research journal sponsored by a dozen or more West Coast universities. Ed Beckenbach was its first editor."
He also wrote a series of text books for high schools and colleges. One such text, written jointly with Richard Bellman, was An Introduction to Inequalities (1961). The topic of inequalities was of interest to him for many years. As well as the above text, and a second Inequalities also written with Richard Bellman and published in 1961, he helped organize three international conferences on the topic at Oberwolfach in Germany in 1976, 1978 and 1981. He was an editor of the Proceedings of these three conferences which were published in 1978, 1980 and 1982 respectively. He was also an active member of both the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America.
In 1982, Ed Beckenbach was selected to receive the 1983 Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics from the Mathematical Association of America. The award was presented posthumously in Denver, Colorado in January of 1983. Fortunately, he had been informed that he was to receive the award and in conjunction with it, he was asked to submit a biography of himself. This was written on 30 July 1982, about five weeks before his death. In it he describes something of his early life:
"It's not particularly easy to write about oneself, but here goes. Much of this is just peripheral information for you, especially the first part, though you are welcome to use any of it as you see fit. The main thing, I think, is to construct a brief and interesting, but factual, story for the reader. I won't try to be brief, but you should.
"My paternal grandparents both came to America from Germany, my grandfather when he was seventeen to escape Bismarck's conscription, and my grandmother when she was four.
"My mother, of English descent, was orphaned at two years of age and affectionately raised by a family named Ford – hence my middle name – who ultimately had a half-dozen children of their own.
"My father was a skilled laborer, a harness-making leather worker.
"Neither of my parents went to school beyond the fourth grade (not uncommon in those days), though both were deeply interested in education. My father, an avid reader, was quite a civic leader, working for improvements in parks, paving, education, and labor conditions. I think my own orientation toward publications stems from seeing articles of his in the Journal of the United Leather-Workers Unions of America.
"Born on July 18, 1906, in Dallas, Texas, the fourth of five siblings (my three sisters have died; my brother, Col. C.G. Beckenbach, lives in Tucson), I went to Reagan Elementary School (salutatorian) and Oak Cliff (now Adamson) High School (valedictorian). My trigonometry report card indicates the direction of my early learning.
"Graduating from high school at midyear, I worked in a bank for about six months before going to Rice in the fall of 1924. There I got my B.A. in 1928, M.A. in 1929, and Ph.D. in 1931.
"I largely worked my way through Rice, waiting tables, selling pop at football games, checking hats at dances, grading papers, assisting in the freshman physics laboratory, and tutoring students. For a long while, I lived in the home of a prominent Houston judge, teaching math (including geometry!) to their sightless son. As a graduate student, I was a Teaching Fellow.
"Also, at Rice, I played on and captained the tennis team and later was its coach. (The Rice yearbooks of that time contain pictures with legends such as, "Beckenbach socks one.")
"The mathematics professors at Rice were then Evans, Ford, and Bray, whose initials, in that order, seemed auspicious to me. There was also a succession of visitors: Mandelbrojt, Vasilesco, Menger, Rado, etc. Rado considerably influenced my own work, though Lester R. Ford, Sr., a wonderful teacher, was my doctoral thesis supervisor.
"After getting my Ph.D. at Rice in 1931, I was a National Research Fellow (Princeton, Ohio State, Chicago), then Instructor back at Rice, 1933-40; Assistant Professor, Michigan, 1940-42, Associate Professor, Texas, 1942-45; Professor, UCLA, 1945-74; Emeritus, 1974- . Also Consultant (Mathematics Editor), RAND Corporation, 1949-63; Member, Institute for Advanced Study, 1951-52; Guggenheim Fellow (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), 1958-1959. But you can get all of that and more from the enclosed copy of a recent write-up in Who's Who in America."
John W Green, Ernst Straus, and Kirby Baker, colleagues of Beckenbach who wrote an obituary of him, described his major contributions to the University of California at Los Angeles:-
"At UCLA, he was a leader in developing the graduate program, from the moment of his arrival. The first Ph.D. in Mathematics at UCLA was awarded in 1947 to a student of his (jointly with W T Puckett). He also was Acting Chairman of the Mathematics Department for a year. In addition, he made two very important special contributions. First, he almost single-handedly brought to bear the influence that caused the creation in 1948 of the Institute for Numerical Analysis on the UCLA campus. This was a branch of the National Bureau of Standards devoted to computing and the construction and use of computing machines. Its SWAC computing machine, built at UCLA, was for a number of years one of the half dozen most powerful computers in the world and was one of the original nodes of the computer network that eventually grew into the internet. Second, he was (together with Frantisek Wolf, of Berkeley) a main influence in the establishment, in 1951, of the Pacific Journal of Mathematics, a major international mathematical research journal sponsored by a dozen or more West Coast universities. Ed Beckenbach was its first editor."
He also wrote a series of text books for high schools and colleges. One such text, written jointly with Richard Bellman, was An Introduction to Inequalities (1961). The topic of inequalities was of interest to him for many years. As well as the above text, and a second Inequalities also written with Richard Bellman and published in 1961, he helped organize three international conferences on the topic at Oberwolfach in Germany in 1976, 1978 and 1981. He was an editor of the Proceedings of these three conferences which were published in 1978, 1980 and 1982 respectively. He was also an active member of both the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America.
Edwin Ford Beckenbach was born 18 Jul 1906 in Oak Cliff, Dallas County, Texas, and died 05 Sep 1982 in Syracuse, New York, having suffered a stroke shortly after finishing a tennis match. He married Madelene Shelby Simons 30 Aug 1933 in the garden of her parent's home in Bay City, Matagorda, Texas. She was born 28 Mar 1913 in Bay City, Matagorda, Texas, and died 12 Sep 1985 in Longview, Gregg County, Texas. They were divorced in 1960. He married second, Alice Judson Curtiss 24 Jun 1960 in Juarez, Mexico.
In 1982, Ed Beckenbach was selected to receive the 1983 Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics from the Mathematical Association of America. The award was presented posthumously in Denver, Colorado in January of 1983. Fortunately, he had been informed that he was to receive the award and in conjunction with it, he was asked to submit a biography of himself. This was written on 30 July 1982, about five weeks before his death. In it he describes something of his early life:
"It's not particularly easy to write about oneself, but here goes. Much of this is just peripheral information for you, especially the first part, though you are welcome to use any of it as you see fit. The main thing, I think, is to construct a brief and interesting, but factual, story for the reader. I won't try to be brief, but you should.
"My paternal grandparents both came to America from Germany, my grandfather when he was seventeen to escape Bismarck's conscription, and my grandmother when she was four.
"My mother, of English descent, was orphaned at two years of age and affectionately raised by a family named Ford – hence my middle name – who ultimately had a half-dozen children of their own.
"My father was a skilled laborer, a harness-making leather worker.
"Neither of my parents went to school beyond the fourth grade (not uncommon in those days), though both were deeply interested in education. My father, an avid reader, was quite a civic leader, working for improvements in parks, paving, education, and labor conditions. I think my own orientation toward publications stems from seeing articles of his in the Journal of the United Leather-Workers Unions of America.
"Born on July 18, 1906, in Dallas, Texas, the fourth of five siblings (my three sisters have died; my brother, Col. C.G. Beckenbach, lives in Tucson), I went to Reagan Elementary School (salutatorian) and Oak Cliff (now Adamson) High School (valedictorian). My trigonometry report card indicates the direction of my early learning.
"Graduating from high school at midyear, I worked in a bank for about six months before going to Rice in the fall of 1924. There I got my B.A. in 1928, M.A. in 1929, and Ph.D. in 1931.
"I largely worked my way through Rice, waiting tables, selling pop at football games, checking hats at dances, grading papers, assisting in the freshman physics laboratory, and tutoring students. For a long while, I lived in the home of a prominent Houston judge, teaching math (including geometry!) to their sightless son. As a graduate student, I was a Teaching Fellow.
"Also, at Rice, I played on and captained the tennis team and later was its coach. (The Rice yearbooks of that time contain pictures with legends such as, "Beckenbach socks one.")
"The mathematics professors at Rice were then Evans, Ford, and Bray, whose initials, in that order, seemed auspicious to me. There was also a succession of visitors: Mandelbrojt, Vasilesco, Menger, Rado, etc. Rado considerably influenced my own work, though Lester R. Ford, Sr., a wonderful teacher, was my doctoral thesis supervisor.
"After getting my Ph.D. at Rice in 1931, I was a National Research Fellow (Princeton, Ohio State, Chicago), then Instructor back at Rice, 1933-40; Assistant Professor, Michigan, 1940-42, Associate Professor, Texas, 1942-45; Professor, UCLA, 1945-74; Emeritus, 1974- . Also Consultant (Mathematics Editor), RAND Corporation, 1949-63; Member, Institute for Advanced Study, 1951-52; Guggenheim Fellow (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), 1958-1959. But you can get all of that and more from the enclosed copy of a recent write-up in Who's Who in America."
John W Green, Ernst Straus, and Kirby Baker, colleagues of Beckenbach who wrote an obituary of him, described his major contributions to the University of California at Los Angeles:-
"At UCLA, he was a leader in developing the graduate program, from the moment of his arrival. The first Ph.D. in Mathematics at UCLA was awarded in 1947 to a student of his (jointly with W T Puckett). He also was Acting Chairman of the Mathematics Department for a year. In addition, he made two very important special contributions. First, he almost single-handedly brought to bear the influence that caused the creation in 1948 of the Institute for Numerical Analysis on the UCLA campus. This was a branch of the National Bureau of Standards devoted to computing and the construction and use of computing machines. Its SWAC computing machine, built at UCLA, was for a number of years one of the half dozen most powerful computers in the world and was one of the original nodes of the computer network that eventually grew into the internet. Second, he was (together with Frantisek Wolf, of Berkeley) a main influence in the establishment, in 1951, of the Pacific Journal of Mathematics, a major international mathematical research journal sponsored by a dozen or more West Coast universities. Ed Beckenbach was its first editor."
He also wrote a series of text books for high schools and colleges. One such text, written jointly with Richard Bellman, was An Introduction to Inequalities (1961). The topic of inequalities was of interest to him for many years. As well as the above text, and a second Inequalities also written with Richard Bellman and published in 1961, he helped organize three international conferences on the topic at Oberwolfach in Germany in 1976, 1978 and 1981. He was an editor of the Proceedings of these three conferences which were published in 1978, 1980 and 1982 respectively. He was also an active member of both the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America.
In 1982, Ed Beckenbach was selected to receive the 1983 Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics from the Mathematical Association of America. The award was presented posthumously in Denver, Colorado in January of 1983. Fortunately, he had been informed that he was to receive the award and in conjunction with it, he was asked to submit a biography of himself. This was written on 30 July 1982, about five weeks before his death. In it he describes something of his early life:
"It's not particularly easy to write about oneself, but here goes. Much of this is just peripheral information for you, especially the first part, though you are welcome to use any of it as you see fit. The main thing, I think, is to construct a brief and interesting, but factual, story for the reader. I won't try to be brief, but you should.
"My paternal grandparents both came to America from Germany, my grandfather when he was seventeen to escape Bismarck's conscription, and my grandmother when she was four.
"My mother, of English descent, was orphaned at two years of age and affectionately raised by a family named Ford – hence my middle name – who ultimately had a half-dozen children of their own.
"My father was a skilled laborer, a harness-making leather worker.
"Neither of my parents went to school beyond the fourth grade (not uncommon in those days), though both were deeply interested in education. My father, an avid reader, was quite a civic leader, working for improvements in parks, paving, education, and labor conditions. I think my own orientation toward publications stems from seeing articles of his in the Journal of the United Leather-Workers Unions of America.
"Born on July 18, 1906, in Dallas, Texas, the fourth of five siblings (my three sisters have died; my brother, Col. C.G. Beckenbach, lives in Tucson), I went to Reagan Elementary School (salutatorian) and Oak Cliff (now Adamson) High School (valedictorian). My trigonometry report card indicates the direction of my early learning.
"Graduating from high school at midyear, I worked in a bank for about six months before going to Rice in the fall of 1924. There I got my B.A. in 1928, M.A. in 1929, and Ph.D. in 1931.
"I largely worked my way through Rice, waiting tables, selling pop at football games, checking hats at dances, grading papers, assisting in the freshman physics laboratory, and tutoring students. For a long while, I lived in the home of a prominent Houston judge, teaching math (including geometry!) to their sightless son. As a graduate student, I was a Teaching Fellow.
"Also, at Rice, I played on and captained the tennis team and later was its coach. (The Rice yearbooks of that time contain pictures with legends such as, "Beckenbach socks one.")
"The mathematics professors at Rice were then Evans, Ford, and Bray, whose initials, in that order, seemed auspicious to me. There was also a succession of visitors: Mandelbrojt, Vasilesco, Menger, Rado, etc. Rado considerably influenced my own work, though Lester R. Ford, Sr., a wonderful teacher, was my doctoral thesis supervisor.
"After getting my Ph.D. at Rice in 1931, I was a National Research Fellow (Princeton, Ohio State, Chicago), then Instructor back at Rice, 1933-40; Assistant Professor, Michigan, 1940-42, Associate Professor, Texas, 1942-45; Professor, UCLA, 1945-74; Emeritus, 1974- . Also Consultant (Mathematics Editor), RAND Corporation, 1949-63; Member, Institute for Advanced Study, 1951-52; Guggenheim Fellow (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), 1958-1959. But you can get all of that and more from the enclosed copy of a recent write-up in Who's Who in America."
John W Green, Ernst Straus, and Kirby Baker, colleagues of Beckenbach who wrote an obituary of him, described his major contributions to the University of California at Los Angeles:-
"At UCLA, he was a leader in developing the graduate program, from the moment of his arrival. The first Ph.D. in Mathematics at UCLA was awarded in 1947 to a student of his (jointly with W T Puckett). He also was Acting Chairman of the Mathematics Department for a year. In addition, he made two very important special contributions. First, he almost single-handedly brought to bear the influence that caused the creation in 1948 of the Institute for Numerical Analysis on the UCLA campus. This was a branch of the National Bureau of Standards devoted to computing and the construction and use of computing machines. Its SWAC computing machine, built at UCLA, was for a number of years one of the half dozen most powerful computers in the world and was one of the original nodes of the computer network that eventually grew into the internet. Second, he was (together with Frantisek Wolf, of Berkeley) a main influence in the establishment, in 1951, of the Pacific Journal of Mathematics, a major international mathematical research journal sponsored by a dozen or more West Coast universities. Ed Beckenbach was its first editor."
He also wrote a series of text books for high schools and colleges. One such text, written jointly with Richard Bellman, was An Introduction to Inequalities (1961). The topic of inequalities was of interest to him for many years. As well as the above text, and a second Inequalities also written with Richard Bellman and published in 1961, he helped organize three international conferences on the topic at Oberwolfach in Germany in 1976, 1978 and 1981. He was an editor of the Proceedings of these three conferences which were published in 1978, 1980 and 1982 respectively. He was also an active member of both the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America.
