In the history of mathematics, J. Laurie Snell is one of the names that keeps returning.
The record lists J. Laurie Snell as American mathematician and economist (1925–2011).
J. Laurie Snell was born at Wheaton in 1925. His recorded nationality is United States. He studied at Dartmouth College and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Twentieth-century mathematics became abstract and highly specialised, and its methods reached into physics, economics and computing.
The recorded fields of work are mathematics and probability theory.
Mathematical work is judged by whether anyone can build on it, and that judgement takes decades.
That the work was done from United States matters: mathematical training, institutions and the language of publication have never been evenly distributed.
J. Laurie Snell died in 2011, aged 86. The proofs remain, and a proof does not decay - which is the particular permanence mathematics offers.
Achievements
- Fields: mathematics and probability theory
