Eugenius Nulty
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Eugenius Nulty (1790 – July 3, 1871) was an Irish born American mathematician of the 19th century.[1] He served on the faculty of Dickinson College from 1814 to 1816, and later taught and tutored prominent Philadelphians, including the brothers Mathew Carey Lea and Henry Charles Lea.
Eugenius Nulty | |
---|---|
Born | 1790 |
Died | July 3, 1871 (age 82) |
Occupation(s) | Mathematician, actuary, teacher |
After arriving in the United States from his native Ireland, Nulty quickly became ensconced as a member of the new nation's small intelligentsia. Contemporaries described him as “brilliant”.[2][3]
In 1814, Nulty became a professor of mathematics at Dickinson College, where he remained for two years.[4][5] In 1816 he moved to Philadelphia at the invitation of The Philadelphia Life Insurance Company and the Pennsylvania Company, who each recruited Nulty as one of the first U.S. actuarial scientists.[6] His new countrymen also called Nulty to assist with mathematics for the Survey of the Coast[7] (which became the United States Coast Survey in 1836 and the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1878).
In 1817, Nulty was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society.[8] In 1823, the University of Pennsylvania awarded Nulty an honorary A.M.[9] He was elected an Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1832.[10] Nulty was also a correspondent of mathematician, chemist and natural philosopher Robert M. Patterson.[11]
Nulty contributed to the defunct Mathematical Diary, one of the 3 earliest learned mathematical journals published in the U.S. His Elements of Geometry, theoretical and practical Philadelphia: J. Wetham (1836) was one of the first two or three original geometries published in the United States[12] and is still over 150 years later available from multiple publishers in historical reprints.[13]
In 1840, P.J. Walker, director of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, called Nulty "unsurpassed at home or abroad" in pure mathematics.[14][15]
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