Oswald Veblen

Oswald Veblen (1880 to 1960) was an American mathematician, geometer and topologist whose work found application in atomic physics and the theory of relativity. Born in Decorah, Iowa, he studied at the University of Iowa and Harvard and took his doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1903 with a dissertation on a system of axioms for geometry, written under E. H. Moore. He proved the Jordan curve theorem in 1905, a proof long regarded as the first rigorous one. Veblen taught at Princeton from 1905 to 1932, then helped organize the Institute for Advanced Study and became its first professor. His contributions include the Veblen axioms for projective geometry, the Veblen-Young theorem and the Veblen functions of ordinals, and he published books on projective geometry, analysis situs and differential geometry. During World War II he oversaw ballistics work at the Aberdeen Proving Ground and supported the proposal for the ENIAC computer. The American Mathematical Society named its Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry after him.