Charles W. Curtis

Charles W. Curtis

Charles Whittlesey Curtis (October 13, 1926 – May 3, 2026) was an American mathematician and historian of mathematics, known for his work in finite group theory and representation theory. He was a professor of mathematics at the University of Oregon.

Life and career

Curtis received a bachelor's degree from Bowdoin College in 1948,[1] and his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1951, under the supervision of Nathan Jacobson.[2] He taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 1954 to 1963.[3] Subsequently, he moved to the University of Oregon, where he was an emeritus professor.[4]

While at Yale, on June 17, 1950 in Cheshire, Connecticut, Curtis married his wife Elizabeth, a kindergarten teacher and childcare provider. At the time of their 50th anniversary in 2000, they had three grandchildren.[5]

In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.[6]

Curtis died in Eugene, Oregon, on May 3, 2026, at the age of 99.[7]

Research

Curtis introduced Curtis duality, a duality operation on the characters of a reductive group over a finite field. His book with Irving Reiner (Curtis & Reiner 1962) was the standard text on representation theory for many years.

Publications

  • Curtis, Charles W. (1999), Pioneers of Representation Theory: Frobenius, Burnside, Schur, and Brauer, History of Mathematics, Providence, R.I.: American Mathematical Society, ISBN 978-0-8218-2677-5.[8][9][10][11]
  • Curtis, Charles W.; Reiner, Irving (1962), Representation theory of finite groups and associative algebras, Pure and Applied Mathematics, Vol. XI, Interscience Publishers, a division of John Wiley & Sons, New York-London, ISBN 978-0-8218-4066-5, MR 0144979 {{citation}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  • Curtis, Charles W.; Reiner, Irving (1981), Methods of representation theory. Vol. I, New York: John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 978-0-471-18994-7, MR 0632548[12]
  • Curtis, Charles W.; Reiner, Irving (1987), Methods of representation theory. Vol. II, New York: John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 978-0-471-88871-0[13]
  • Curtis, Charles W. (1974), Linear Algebra, Pearson Allyn & Bacon, ISBN 978-0205040087

References

  1. ↑ University of Oregon Catalog 2011–2012 Archived July 20, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, retrieved 2011-07-11.
  2. ↑ Charles W. Curtis at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  3. ↑ UW Math Department Faculty 1849-2010 Archived 2012-08-29 at the Wayback Machine, retrieved 2011-07-11.
  4. ↑ Emeritus Faculty Directory Archived 2012-04-27 at the Wayback Machine, University of Oregon Department of Mathematics, retrieved 2011-07-11.
  5. ↑ "Curtis", Eugene Register-Guardian, July 24, 2000.
  6. ↑ List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society, retrieved 2012-11-10.
  7. ↑ "Charles Curtis". The Register-Guard. 20 May 2026. Retrieved 21 May 2026.
  8. ↑ Review of Pioneers of Representation Theory by Peter G. Neumann, MR 1715145.
  9. ↑ Review of Pioneers of Representation Theory by J. E. Humphreys, Bull. AMS, 2000, doi:10.1090/S0273-0979-00-00867-3.
  10. ↑ Review of Pioneers of Representation Theory by Leo Corry, Isis, 2001.
  11. ↑ Review of Pioneers of Representation Theory by Thomas Hawkins, Historia Mathematica, 2003, doi:10.1016/S0315-0860(02)00012-5.
  12. ↑ Carlson, Jon F. (1983). "Review: Methods of representation theory, Vol. I, by C. W. Curtis and I. Reiner". Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.). 8 (1): 112–116. doi:10.1090/s0273-0979-1983-15099-1.
  13. ↑ Carlson, Jon F. (1987). "Review: Methods of representation theory, Vol. II, by C. W. Curtis and I. Reiner". Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.). 1988 (2): 484–488. doi:10.1090/S0273-0979-1988-15709-6.
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