Albert Charles Schaeffer

Albert Charles Schaeffer called Al Schaeffer, (born 13 August 1907 in Belvidere, Illinois, † February 2, 1957 ) was an American mathematician who worked on complex analysis.

Life

Schaeffer was born the son of Albert John and Mary Plane Schaeffer born Herrick. He studied civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin (Bachelor 1930) and worked as a highway engineer from 1930 to 1933. 1936 received his doctorate in mathematics at Eberhard Hopf at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After that, he was instructor at Purdue University. In 1939, he came as an instructor at Stanford University, where he was an assistant professor in 1941, associate professor in 1943 and professor in 1946. 1947-1950 was Schaeffer Professor at Purdue University. 1950 to 1957 he was professor at the University of Wisconsin, 1956/57, as chairman of the mathematics faculty.

Schaeffer worked with Donald Spencer at Stanford University on variational problems of conformal mappings, for example, coefficient ranges for simple functions ( ie analytic and one-one ), a problem from the environment of the Bieberbach conjecture, they were able to confirm for the third coefficient ( which, however, was proved by Charles Loewner ). Their goal was the proof of the fourth coefficient, which would have required the numerical integration of a million differential equations. A little later improved Paul Garabedian and Schiffer Max also at Stanford their method reduced the number of necessary integrations and Garabedian could solve the problem. In 1948, Schaeffer and Spencer the Bôcher Memorial Prize for their work on simple functions.

In 1931 he married Caroline Juliette Marsh, with whom he had two sons and a daughter.

Writings

• With Donald Spencer: Coefficient functions for simple regions, American Mathematical Society Colloquium Publications 1950