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Peace Corps

(Encyclopedia)Peace Corps, agency of the U.S. government, whose purpose is to assist underdeveloped countries in meeting their needs for trained manpower. The Peace Corps was established in 1961 by executive order ...

Chern, Shiing-Shen

(Encyclopedia)Chern, Shiing-Shen, 1911–2004, Chinese-American mathematician, b. Kashing (now Jiaxing), China, D.Sc. Hamburg, 1936. While undertaking graduate studies in China (1932–34), Chern developed what bec...

Wright, Elizur

(Encyclopedia)Wright, Elizur ĭlīˈzər [key], 1804–85, American actuary and antislavery leader, b. near Canaan, Conn., grad. Yale, 1826. He taught (1829–33) mathematics at Western Reserve College. In 1833 he ...

Perelman, Grigori Yakovlevich

(Encyclopedia)Perelman, Grigori Yakovlevich, 1966–, Russian mathematician. After doing graduate work in the late 1980s for his Candidate of Science degree from Leningrad State Univ. (now St. Petersburg State Univ...

Germain, Sophie

(Encyclopedia)Germain, Sophie sôfēˈ zhĕrmăNˈ [key], 1776–1831, French mathematician. Although self-taught, she mastered mathematics and corresponded with J. L. Lagrange and C. F. Gauss. She is known especia...

Smith, Henry John Stephen

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Henry John Stephen, 1826–83, British mathematician. He was a lecturer in mathematics (1850–73) and, from 1860 to 1883, Savilian professor of geometry at Oxford. He is especially noted for h...

tensor

(Encyclopedia)tensor, in mathematics, quantity that depends linearly on several vector variables and that varies covariantly with respect to some variables and contravariantly with respect to others when the coordi...

Apollonius of Perga

(Encyclopedia)Apollonius of Perga, fl. 247–205 b.c., Greek mathematician of the Alexandrian school. He produced a treatise on conic sections that included, as well as his own work, much of the work of his predece...

Eliot, Charles William

(Encyclopedia)Eliot, Charles William, 1834–1926, American educator and president of Harvard, b. Boston, grad. Harvard, 1853. In 1854 he was appointed tutor in mathematics at Harvard and in 1858 became assistant p...

Laurentian University

(Encyclopedia)Laurentian University, main campus at Sudbury, Ont., Canada; bilingual, coeducational; founded 1960. Among its faculties are those in astronomy, commerce, computer science, education, engineering, law...