Derrick Norman Lehmer

Lehmer was educated at the University of Nebraska, obtaining his bachelor's degree in 1893 and master's in 1896. His PhD was from the University of Chicago in 1900 for a thesis, Asymptotic Evaluation of Certain Totient-Sums, under the supervision of E. H. Moore.

He was appointed instructor in mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1900 and married Clara Eunice Mitchell on 12 July 1900 in Decatur, Illinois. He was promoted to professor at Berkeley in 1918 and continued to teach there until retiring in 1937.

In 1903, he presented a factorization of Jevons's number (8,616,460,799) at the San Francisco Section of the American Mathematical Society on December 19, 1903.Lehmer, D.N., [https://projecteuclid.org/journals/bulletin-of-the-american-mathematical-society-new-series/volume-13/issue-10/A-theorem-in-the-theory-of-numbers/bams/1183419373.full "A Theorem in the Theory of Numbers"], read before the San Francisco Section of the American Mathematical Society, December 19, 1903.William Stanley Jevons had written in his Principles of Science, p. 123, "Can the reader say what two numbers multiplied together will produce the number 8616460799 ? I think it unlikely that anyone but myself will ever know." Lehmer added "I think that the number has been resolved before, but I do not know by whom."

He published tables of prime numbers and prime factorizations, reaching 10,017,000 by 1909.Lehmer, D. N., Factor table for the first ten millions containing the smallest factor of every number not divisible by 2, 3, 5, or 7 between the limits 0 and 10017000, Carnegie institution of Washington. Publication no. 105, 1909. He developed a variety of mechanical and electro-mechanical factoring and computational devices, such as the Lehmer sieve, built with his son Derrick Henry Lehmer.

• {{cite journal|title=Arithmetical theory of certain Hurwitzian continued fractions|journal=Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A|year=1918|volume=4|issue=8|pages=214–218|pmc=1091449|doi=10.1073/pnas.4.8.214|pmid=16576302|last1=Lehmer|first1=D. N.|bibcode=1918PNAS....4..214L|doi-access=free}}
• {{cite journal|title=On Jacobi's extension of the continued fraction algorithm|journal=Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A|year=1918|volume=4|issue=12|pages=360–364|pmc=1091496|doi=10.1073/pnas.4.12.360|pmid=16576328|last1=Lehmer|first1=D. N.|bibcode=1918PNAS....4..360L|doi-access=free}}
• {{cite journal|title=On a new method of factorization|journal=Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A|year=1925|volume=11|issue=1|pages=97–98|pmc=1085844|doi=10.1073/pnas.11.1.97|pmid=16586982|last1=Lehmer|first1=D. N.|bibcode=1925PNAS...11...97L|doi-access=free}}
• {{cite journal|title=A theorem on factorization|journal=Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.|year=1927|volume=33|issue=1|pages=35–36|mr=1561316|doi=10.1090/s0002-9904-1927-04299-9|doi-access=free|last1=Lehmer|first1=D. N.}}
• {{cite journal|title=Inverse ternary continued fractions|journal=Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.|year=1931|volume=37|issue=8|pages=565–569|mr=1562198|doi=10.1090/s0002-9904-1931-05206-x|doi-access=free|last1=Lehmer|first1=D. N.}}
• {{cite journal|title=On the enumeration of magic cubes|journal=Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.|year=1934|volume=40|issue=12|pages=833–837|mr=1562983|doi=10.1090/s0002-9904-1934-05976-7|doi-access=free|last1=Lehmer|first1=D. N.}}

{{Reflist}}

• Albert H. Beiler, Recreations in the theory of numbers, Dover, 1964; chap.XX

• {{Gutenberg author | id=7084| name=Derrick Norman Lehmer}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Derrick Norman Lehmer}}
• {{MacTutor Biography|id=Lehmer_Derrick_N}}
• {{MathGenealogy|id=5865}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lehmer, Derrick Norman}}

Category:1867 births

Category:1938 deaths

Category:19th-century American mathematicians

Category:20th-century American mathematicians

Category:American number theorists

Category:University of Nebraska–Lincoln alumni

Category:University of Chicago alumni

Category:University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty