Philip M. Whitman

Philip Martin Whitman
NationalityAmerican
EducationHaverford College
Alma materHarvard University
Known forFree lattice word problem
AwardsAMS Honorary Member
Scientific career
FieldsLattice theory
InstitutionsUPenn,[1] Tufts[2]
Thesis Free Lattices  (1941)
Doctoral advisorGarrett Birkhoff

Philip Martin Whitman is an American mathematician who contributed to lattice theory, particularly the theory of free lattices.

Living in Pittsburgh,[3] he attended the Haverford College, where he earned a corporation scholarship for 1936–37,[4] and a Clementine Cope fellowship for 1937–38,[5] and was awarded highest honors in mathematical astronomy in 1937.[6] He was elected to the college's chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.[7] In June 1937, he was conferred the Bachelor of science degree from Haverford.[8] According to Garrett Birkhoff, Whitman was an undergraduate Harvard student in 1937,[9] and an outstanding graduate student not later than 1940, one of the first who taught elementary courses to freshmen in the mathematics department.[10] In 1938 he earned his AM,[11] and in June 1941 he obtained his Ph.D. degree from Harvard University.[12] He was a member of the AMS not later than 1947,[13] and was awarded an AMS honorary membership not later than 1995.[14]

  1. ^ Whitman (1946), p. 522
  2. ^ Birkhoff, Whitman (1949), p. 136
  3. ^ Haverford Bulletin p. 12 (= vol.35, p. (6))
  4. ^ Haverford Bulletin p. 125 (= vol 35., p. 99)
  5. ^ Haverford Bulletin p. 429 (= vol.36, p. 101)
  6. ^ Haverford Bulletin p. 433
  7. ^ Haverford Bulletin, p. 128, 432
  8. ^ Haverford Bulletin p. 428 (= vol.36, p. 100)
  9. ^ Birkhoff (1988), p. 50
  10. ^ Birkhoff (1988), p. 24
  11. ^ Record at Harvard library
  12. ^ Haverford News, Vol.33, No.5, Tue 28 Oct 1941, p. 8 (7)
  13. ^ Bulletin of the AMS, Jul 1947, p. 715
  14. ^ Notices of the AMS Vol.42, No.12, Dec.1995, p. 1555