Robert Lee Moore

Robert Lee Moore (1882 to 1974) was an American mathematician who taught for many years at the University of Texas. He is known for his work in general topology, which he first touched on in his doctoral thesis at the University of Chicago, completed in 1905 under Oswald Veblen. After posts at Tennessee, Princeton, Northwestern and the University of Pennsylvania, he returned to Texas in 1920 and taught there until his forced retirement in 1969. He published 67 papers and the 1932 monograph Foundations of Point Set Theory, coined the term point-set topology, and gave his name to the Moore plane, Moore space, Moore's quotient theorem and the normal Moore space conjecture. He is also known for the Moore method of teaching, in which students prove theorems themselves, and he supervised about fifty doctoral dissertations, including those of R. H. Bing, John R. Kline, Edwin Moise, Mary Ellen Rudin and Gordon Whyburn. His refusal to teach African-American students is part of his documented record. He presided over the American Mathematical Society from 1936 to 1938 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1931.