Doris Schattschneider

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Doris Schattschneider

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| birth_date = {{birth-date and age|October 19, 1939}}

| birth_place = Staten Island, New York

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| nationality = American

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| fields = Mathematics

| workplaces = Moravian College

| alma_mater = Yale University

| doctoral_advisor = Tsuneo Tamagawa
Ichirô Satake

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| thesis_title = Restricted Roots of a Semi-simple Algebraic Group

| thesis_year = 1966

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Doris J. Schattschneider (née Wood) is an American mathematician, a retired professor of mathematics at Moravian College. She is known for writing about tessellations and about the art of M. C. Escher,{{citation|url=http://math.unca.edu/parsons-lecture/2005/bio|title=2005 Parson Lecturer - Dr. Doris Schattschneider|publisher=University of North Carolina at Asheville, Department of Mathematics|access-date=2013-07-13|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140111191254/http://math.unca.edu/parsons-lecture/2005/bio|archive-date=2014-01-11}}.{{citation|url=http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/schatt.htm|title=Doris Schattschneider|series=Biographies of Women Mathematicians|publisher=Agnes Scott College|date=April 5, 2013|access-date=2013-07-13|first=Larry|last=Riddle}}. for helping Martin Gardner validate and popularize the pentagon tiling discoveries of amateur mathematician Marjorie Rice,{{citation|title=Beating the Pros to the Punch|journal=Los Angeles Times|date=March 11, 1998|first=K. C.|last=Cole|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-mar-11-mn-27706-story.html}}. and for co-directing with Eugene Klotz the project that developed The Geometer's Sketchpad.{{citation|last=Scher|first=Daniel|url=http://math.coe.uga.edu/TME/Issues/v10n2/4scher.pdf|title=Lifting the curtain: The evolution of The Geometer's Sketchpad|journal=Mathematics Educator|volume=10|issue=2|pages=42–48|date=Summer 2000|access-date=2013-07-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140211060434/http://math.coe.uga.edu/tme/Issues/v10n2/4scher.pdf|archive-date=2014-02-11|url-status=dead}}.

Biography

Schattschneider was born in Staten Island; her mother, Charlotte Lucile Ingalls Wood, taught Latin and was herself the daughter of a Staten Island school principal, and her father, Robert W. Wood, Jr., was an electrical engineer who worked for the New York City Bureau of Bridge Design.{{citation|last=Brunner|first=Regina Baron|contribution=Doris Wood Schattschneider|title=Notable Women in Mathematics: A Biographical Dictionary|editor1-first=Charlene|editor1-last=Morrow|editor2-first=Teri|editor2-last=Perl|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=1998|pages=214–219|isbn=9780313291319|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u7nqH3RzUusC&pg=PA214}}. Her family moved to Lake Placid, New York during World War II, while her father served as an engineer for the U. S. Army; she began her schooling in Lake Placid, but returned to Staten Island after the war. She did her undergraduate studies in mathematics at the University of Rochester, and earned a Ph.D. in 1966 from Yale University under the joint supervision of Tsuneo Tamagawa and Ichirô Satake with the thesis, Restricted Roots of a Semi-simple Algebraic Group.{{mathgenealogy|id=65014}} She taught at Northwestern University for a year and at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle for three years before joining the faculty of Moravian College in 1968, where she remained for 34 years until her retirement.Author biography from "Tiling the Plane with Congruent Pentagons", Mathematics Magazine, 1978. She was the first female editor of Mathematics Magazine, from 1981 to 1985.

She was married for 54 years to the Rev. Dr. David A. Schattschneider (1939-2016), a church historian and Dean of Moravian Theological Seminary; their daughter Laura Ellen Schattschneider is a lawyer.

Schattschneider and Marjorie Rice

Marjorie Rice was an amateur mathematician and San Diego mother of five who became fascinated by Martin Gardner's descriptions of tessellations by pentagonal tiles in Scientific American. She investigated, and devising her own notation system, had found a previously unknown type of pentagon tiling by February 1976. She drew up several tessellations by these new pentagon tiles and mailed her discoveries to Martin Gardner. He, in turn, sent Rice's work to Schattschneider, who was an expert in tiling patterns. Schattschneider was skeptical at first, but upon careful examination, was able to validate Rice's results.{{cite news|last=Cole|first=K. C.|title=Beating the Pros to the Punch|date=March 11, 1998|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-mar-11-mn-27706-story.html |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |page=1 |id={{ProQuest|421258615}} |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151106221324/http://articles.latimes.com/1998/mar/11/news/mn-27706 |archive-date=November 6, 2015 |url-status=live }} Schattschneider not only helped Martin Gardner publicize the pentagon tilings discoveries of Rice, but lauded her work as a significant discovery by an amateur mathematician.{{cite book|first=Doris |last=Schattschneider |chapter=In Praise of Amateurs |editor-first=David A. |editor-last=Klarner |title=The Mathematical Gardner |pages=140–166 |publisher=Prindle, Weber & Schmidt |location=Boston |date=1981 |doi=10.1007/978-1-4684-6686-7_16 |isbn=978-1-4684-6688-1 |url=http://www.math.jhu.edu/~eriehl/301/Schattschneider-Amateurs.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726234427/http://www.math.jhu.edu/~eriehl/301/Schattschneider-Amateurs.pdf |archive-date=July 26, 2020 }} Reprinted as Mathematical Recreations: A Collection in Honor of Martin Gardner, Mineloa, NY: Dover, 1998{{cite journal |first=Doris |last=Schattschneider|url=http://britton.disted.camosun.bc.ca/jbperplex.htm |title=Perplexing Pentagons |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160813111016/http://britton.disted.camosun.bc.ca/jbperplex.htm|archive-date=August 13, 2016 |date=Spring 1996|volume=7 |issue=1 |journal=Discovering Geometry Newsletter |oclc=1001465604}}

In 1995, at a regional meeting of the Mathematical Association of America held in Los Angeles, Schattschneider convinced Rice and her husband to attend her lecture on Rice's work. At the conclusion of the talk, Schattschneider introduced the amateur mathematician who had advanced the study of tessellation. "And everybody in the room . . . gave her a standing ovation."{{cite journal |last1=Schattschneider |first1=Doris |title=Marjorie Rice (16 February 1923–2 July 2017) |journal=Journal of Mathematics and the Arts |date=2017 |volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=51–54 |doi=10.1080/17513472.2017.1399680|doi-access=free}}

Awards and honors

Schattschneider won the Mathematical Association of America's Carl B. Allendoerfer Award for excellence in expository writing in Mathematics Magazine in 1979, for her article "Tiling the plane with congruent pentagons".{{citation|url=http://www.maa.org/awards/allendoerfer.html|title=The Mathematical Association of America's Carl B. Allendoerfer Award|access-date=2013-07-13|archive-date=1999-09-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19990909235834/http://www.maa.org/awards/allendoerfer.html|url-status=dead}}.

In 1993, she received the Deborah and Franklin Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics.{{Cite web|url=https://maa.org/member-communities/maa-awards/teaching-awards/section-award|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240608175318/https://maa.org/member-communities/maa-awards/teaching-awards/section-award|url-status=dead|archive-date=2024-06-08|title=Recipients of the Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics; Mathematical Association of America|website=www.maa.org}}{{citation|title=Moravian professor gets math teaching award|journal=The Morning Call|date=April 8, 1993|url=https://www.mcall.com/1993/04/08/moravian-professor-gets-math-teaching-award/}}.

In 2012, she became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.[http://www.ams.org/profession/fellows-list List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society], retrieved 2013-07-13.

She delivered the Martin Gardner Lecture at MathFest in August 2021.{{Cite web|title=Invited Addresses {{!}} Mathematical Association of America|url=https://www.maa.org/node/2567109/|access-date=2021-06-04|website=www.maa.org}}

Selected publications

;Books

M. C. Escher Kaleidocycles (with Wallace Walker), Ballantine Books, 1977, Pomegranate Artbooks and TACO, 1987, Taschen 2015{{citation|title=Book Review: Art Meets Math in 'Kaleidocycles'|journal=Los Angeles Times|date=May 27, 1988|first=Lee|last=Dembart|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-05-27-vw-3989-story.html}}.
Visions of Symmetry: Notebooks, Periodic Drawings, and Related Work of M. C. Escher (W. H. Freeman, 1990, 1992;

:Revised as M. C. Escher: Visions of Symmetry, Harry N. Abrams, 2004){{citation|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8JFKAAAAIBAJ&pg=2530,489680|journal=The Sunday Telegraph|date=2 December 1990|first=David|last=Brooks|title=Escher: Unusual marriage of art and mathematics. Author explores inspiration behind the geometrical work}}.{{citation|title=Review: Paper patterns of complexity|url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13618485.700-review-paper-patterns-of-complexity-.html|journal=New Scientist|date=21 November 1992}}.{{citation|title=A season's treasures: Paperbacks from east to west|journal=Newsday|first=Charles|last=Solomon|date=December 6, 1992}}.{{citation|title=Ever so plane and beautiful|journal=Times Higher Education|date=14 January 2005|url=http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/193471.article}}.

A Companion to Calculus (with Dennis Ebersole, Alicia Sevilla, and Kay Somers, Brooks/Cole, 1995){{citation|title=Calculus Made Easier: Professors Publish Book To Aid Students|journal=The Morning Call|date=December 18, 1993|first=John P.|last=Martin|url=https://www.mcall.com/1993/12/18/calculus-made-easier-professors-publish-book-to-aid-students/}}.

;Edited volumes

Geometry Turned On!: Dynamic Software in Learning, Teaching, and Research (with James King, Cambridge University Press, 1997)
M.C. Escher's Legacy: A Centennial Celebration (with Michelle Emmer, Springer, 2003)

;Articles

{{citation|url=https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/upload_library/22/Allendoerfer/1979/0025570x.di021103.02p0247f.pdf|title=Tiling the plane with congruent pentagons|first=Doris|last=Schattschneider|journal=Mathematics Magazine|volume=51|year=1978|issue=1|pages=29–44|doi=10.2307/2689644|jstor=2689644}};

:Reprinted with Afterword in The Harmony of the World: 75 Years of Mathematics Magazine, eds. G. Alexanderson and P. Ross, Math. Assoc. of Amer., Washington DC, 2007, pp. 175-190.

{{citation|title=The plane symmetry groups: Their recognition and notation|first=Doris|last=Schattschneider|journal=The American Mathematical Monthly|volume=85|issue=6|year=1978|pages=439–450|doi=10.1080/00029890.1978.11994612|jstor=2320063}}.
{{citation|first=Doris|last=Schattschneider|contribution=In praise of amateurs|editor-first=David A.|editor-last=Klarner|title=The Mathematical Gardner|pages=140–166|publisher=Prindle, Weber & Schmidt|location=Boston|year=1981}};

:Reprinted as Mathematical Recreations: A Collection in Honor of Martin Gardner, Dover Publications, New York, 1998.

Schattschneider, Doris (1998), "One Corona is Enough for the Euclidean Plane," coauthor Nikolai Dolbilin. In Quasicrystals and Discrete Geometry (J. Patera, editor). Fields Institute Monographs, Vol. 10, AMS, Providence, RI, 1998, pp. 207–246.

: Accompanying web site: [http://mathforum.org/dynamic/one-corona/ Catalog of Isohedral Tilings by Symmetric Polygonal Tiles]

Doris Schattschneider

Biography

Schattschneider and Marjorie Rice

Awards and honors

Selected publications

References

Further reading