Biography:Jean Pedersen

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Short description: American mathematician
Jean J. Pedersen

Jean J. Pedersen (Sep 17, 1934–Jan 1, 2016)[1][2] was an American mathematician and author particularly known for her works on the mathematics of paper folding.

Education and career

Pedersen was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, the daughter of an ophthalmologist and a teacher. She studied home economics changing to a double major in mathematics and physics as an undergraduate at Brigham Young University, before becoming a graduate student in mathematics at the University of Utah under the supervision of E. Allen Davis.[2]

After completing her master's degree, she moved to San Jose, California, following her husband who worked for IBM. She joined the faculty at the Santa Clara University on a part-time basis in 1966, but shifted to full-time and was promoted to full professor in 1996. She was the first woman to teach mathematics at the university, and the first to be tenured as a mathematics professor.[2]

Her discovery that the platonic solids could be braided from strips of paper led to Martin Gardner writing about it in the September, 1971 Mathematical Games column in Scientific American.[3]

Books

Pedersen's books include:

  • Geometric Playthings (With Kent Pedersen, Dale Seymour Publications Secondary, 1973, ISBN:978-0866513517)
  • Fear No More: An Adult Approach to Mathematics (with Peter Hilton, Dale Seymour Publications, 1982 ISBN:978-0201057133)
  • Build Your Own Polyhedra (with Peter Hilton, Addison-Wesley, 1988)[4]
  • Mathematical Reflections: In a Room with Many Windows (with Peter Hilton and Derek Holton, Springer, 1996)[5][6]
  • Mathematical Vistas: From a Room with Many Windows (with Peter Hilton and Derek Holton, Springerl 2002)[5][7]
  • 99 Points of Intersection: Examples—Pictures—Proofs (by Hans Walser, translated with Peter Hilton, Mathematical Association of America, 2006)[8]
  • A Mathematical Tapestry: Demonstrating the Beautiful Unity of Mathematics (with Peter Hilton, illustrated by Sylvie Donmoyer, Cambridge University Press, 2010)[9]

She and Peter Hilton also translated The Golden Section and Symmetry by Hans Walser from German into English. Both translations were published by the Mathematical Association of America in 2001.[10]

References

  1. ↑ "Jean Pedersen (1934–2016)", News, Events & Announcements (American Mathematical Society), February 5, 2016, https://www.ams.org/news#!news_id=2966 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Jean Pedersen", Santa Clara Magazine, June 6, 2016, https://magazine.scu.edu/classnote/jean-pedersen, retrieved 2018-10-29 
  3. ↑ "Plaited Platonic Puzzles" by Jean J. Pedersen, The Two-Year College Mathematics Journal, vol. 4, no. 3, 1973, pp 22-37
  4. ↑ Reviews of Build Your Own Polyhedra:
    • Schmidt, Don (February 1989), "none", The Mathematics Teacher 82 (2): 145 
    • Leiva, Miriam A. (April 1989), "none", The Arithmetic Teacher 36 (8): 58–59 
    • Jacob, Wiliam (October 1994), "none", The Mathematics Teacher 87 (7): 572 
    • Provost, Mary D. (September–October 1995), "none", Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School 1 (6): 497–498 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Review of Mathematical Reflections and Mathematical Vistas:
  6. ↑ Review of Mathematical Reflections:
    • Anthony, Joby Milo (August–September 1998), "none", The American Mathematical Monthly 105 (7): 682–686, doi:10.2307/2589274 
  7. ↑ Reviews of Mathematical Vistas:
  8. ↑ Reviews of 99 Points of Intersection:
  9. ↑ Reviews of A Mathematical Tapestry:
  10. ↑ Review of The Golden Section and Symmetry:



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