Edward Kasner Explained

Edward Kasner
Birth Date:	April 2, 1878
Birth Place:	New York City, United States
Death Place:	New York City, United States
Nationality:	American
Fields:	Mathematics
Workplaces:	Columbia University
Alma Mater:
Doctoral Advisor:	Felix Klein David Hilbert
Doctoral Students:	Rufus Isaacs Joseph Ritt Jesse Douglas Edna Kramer
Known For:	Kasner metric Kasner polygon "googol"

Edward Kasner (April 2, 1878 – January 7, 1955) was an American mathematician who was appointed Tutor on Mathematics in the Columbia University Mathematics Department. Kasner was the first Jewish person appointed to a faculty position in the sciences at Columbia University.^[1] Subsequently, he became an adjunct professor in 1906, and a full professor in 1910, at the university. Differential geometry was his main field of study. In addition to introducing the term "googol", he is known also for the Kasner metric and the Kasner polygon.^[2]

Education

Kasner's 1899 PhD dissertation at Columbia University was titled The Invariant Theory of the Inversion Group: Geometry upon a Quadric Surface; it was published by the American Mathematical Society in 1900 in their Transactions.

Googol and googolplex

Kasner is perhaps best remembered today for introducing the term "googol." In order to pique the interest of children, Kasner sought a name for a very large number: one followed by 100 zeros. On a walk in the New Jersey Palisades with his nephews, Milton (1911–1981)^[3] and Edwin Sirotta, Kasner asked for their ideas. Nine-year-old Milton suggested "googol".^[4]

In 1940, with James R. Newman, Kasner co-wrote a non-technical book surveying the field of mathematics, called Mathematics and the Imagination . It was in this book that the term "googol" was first popularized:

The Internet search engine "Google" originated from a misspelling of "googol",^{[5] [6] [7]} and the "Googleplex" (the Google company headquarters in Mountain View, California) is similarly derived from googolplex.

Personal life

Kasner was Jewish and was the son of Austrian immigrants.^[8]

Works

• 1986367 . 430–498 . Kasner . E. . The Invariant Theory of the Inversion Group: Geometry Upon a Quadric Surface . 1 . 4 . . 1900 . 10.1090/S0002-9947-1900-1500550-1 . 2027/miun.abv0510.0001.001 . free .
• Book: Kasner, Edward . 1980 . Differential-geometric aspects of dynamics . 1934 . C. Carpelan . A. Parpola . P. Koskikallio . The Logarithmic potential and other monographs . 235–263 . New York . Chelsea . 0-8284-0305-8 .
• Book: Kasner, Edward . Newman, James R. . . London: Penguin, 1940; New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967 . Dover Pubns . April 2001 . 0-486-41703-4 .
• Edward Kasner and James R. Newman, Mathematics and the Imagination, Tempus Books of Microsoft Press, 1989.
• Kasner . Edward . The Ratio of the Arc to the Chord of an Analytic Curve Need Not Be Unity . Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society . July 1914 . 20 . 524–31 . 10.1090/S0002-9904-1914-02545-5 . 10 . free .
• Kasner . Edward . Geometrical theorems on Einstein's cosmological equations . Amer. J. Math. . 1921 . 43 . 217–221 . 10.2307/2370192 . 4 . The Johns Hopkins University Press . 2370192 . 1921AmJM...43..217K.

External links

• History from the Google website

Notes and References

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20121221005651/http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/stand_columbia/TimelineCUJew.html Columbia and the "Jewish Problem”
2. Douglas, Jesse (1958) Edward Kasner, A Biographical Memoir prepared for the National Academy of Sciences.
3. There have been several dates reported in the literature, ranging from 1911 to 1929, but only 1911 is consistent with family records (Bialik).
4. There Could Be No Google Without Edward Kasner . Carl . Bialik . The Wall Street Journal Online . June 14, 2004 . (retrieved March 17, 2015)
5. Koller, David. "Origin of the name, "Google", Stanford University January 2004.
6. Hanley, Rachael. "From Googol to Google: Co-founder returns ", The Stanford Daily February 12, 2003 (retrieved July 14, 2006).
7. Bylund, Anders. "To Google or Not to Google", The Motley Fool via MSNBC. July 5, 2006 (retrieved July 7, 2006).
8. Web site: Edward Kasner. MacTutor.