HISTORY NOTE
The following interesting History
Note was given to the editors
by Professor James Thompson.
The 7th International Congress
of Mathematicians was held at
the University of Toronto on
Aug. 11-16, 1924. This was the
first time the meeting was held
outside of Europe. The famous
Belgian analyst Charles Jean
de la Vallee Poussin was president
of the International Mathematical
Union at that time. This was
his first visit to this continent,
and he was awarded an honorary
degree by the University of
Toronto.
He remained in the USA after
the meeting to lecture at many
of the large universities, under
the auspices of the Educational
Foundation for Belgian Relief.
He spoke at Chicago, Berkeley,
UCLA, Caltech, Wisconsin, Minnesota,
Michigan, Cornell, Columbia,
MIT, Brown, Yale, and Princeton.
By studying the October 1924
issues of the Minnesota Daily,
the following announcement was
found.
GRADUATE SCHOOL
Professor C. J. de la Vallee
Poussin, of the University of
Louvain, will lecture at the
University of Minnesota on Tuesday,
October 14, and Wednesday October
15, at 4:30 p. m., in Folwell
101. The titles of the lectures,
which will be delivered in French,
are "L'approximation des
fonctions de variables reelles"
and "Les fonctions d'ensemble
et les fonctionnelles."
Professor de la Vallee Poussin
is the most distinguished of
Belgian mathematicians, and
one of the most distinguished
mathematicians of Europe. All
members of the University are
invited.
Guy Stanton Ford, Dean
The speaker was introduced by
Professor Dunham Jackson (1888-1946),
who was well-known in the field
of approximation theory. Jackson
was a professor at Minnesota
from 1919 to 1946. Translations
were given by Professor Anthony
L. Underhill, member of the
Minnesota math department for
many years. Professor Underhill
had translated Hadamard's book
on Partial Differential Equations
from French to English.
Undoubtedly,
the reputation of Dunham Jackson
was the reason for scheduling
the talk at Minnesota. Jackson
was a member of the National
Academy of Sciences, and was
the advisor of 18 Ph.D. students
at Minnesota. For more information,
see the interesting memorial
article about Professor Jackson
in the AMS Bulletin of September
1946 (p.847-860).
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