Mathematician:Henry John Stephen Smith

Mathematician

Irish mathematician remembered for his work in elementary divisors, quadratic forms, and the Smith-Minkowski-Siegel Mass Formula in number theory.

Devised the Smith Normal Form of a matrix.

Also worked on elliptic functions.

Nationality

Irish (then part of Great Britain).

History

• Born: 2 November 1826 in Dublin, Ireland
• Died: 9 February 1883 in Oxford, England

Theorems and Definitions

• Smith-Minkowski-Siegel Mass Formula (with Hermann Minkowski and Carl Ludwig Siegel)
• Smith Normal Form
• Smith-Volterra-Cantor Set (with Vito Volterra and Georg Cantor)

Definitions of concepts named for Henry John Stephen Smith can be found here.

Publications

• 1861: On systems of linear indeterminate equations and congruences (Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Vol. 151, no. 1: pp. 293 – 326)  www.jstor.org/stable/108738

Notable Quotes

Arithmetic is one of the oldest branches, perhaps the very oldest branch, of human knowledge; and yet some of its most abstruse secrets lie close to its tritest truths.

-- Quoted in 1937: Eric Temple Bell: Men of Mathematics: They Say: What Say They? : Let Them Say

Also known as

The Stephen is sometimes omitted when reporting his name: Henry John Smith.

Sources

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "Henry John Stephen Smith": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive

• 1937: Eric Temple Bell: Men of Mathematics ... (previous) ... (next): They Say: What Say They? : Let Them Say
• 1998: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Smith, Henry John (1826-83)
• 2008: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Smith, Henry John (1826-83)