Julian Coolidge

Julian Lowell Coolidge (September 28, 1873 – March 5, 1954) was an American mathematician, historian, a professor and chairman of the Harvard University Mathematics Department.

Between 1897 and 1899, Julian Coolidge taught at the Groton School, where one of his students was Franklin D. Roosevelt. Julian Coolidge then returned to teach at Harvard where he remained for his entire academic career, interrupted only by a year at the Sorbonne in Paris as an exchange professor.

Coolidge returned to teach at Harvard where he was awarded a full professorship. In 1927 he was appointed chairman of the Mathematics Department at Harvard, Coolidge served as president of the Mathematical Association of America and vice-president of the American Mathematical Society. He authored several books on mathematics and on the history of mathematics. He was Master of Lowell House (one of Harvard's undergraduate residences) from 1930 to 1940.

Coolidge died in 1954 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, aged 80. J. L. Coolidge (1924) The geometry of the complex domain, The Clarendon Press. J. L. Coolidge (1925) An introduction to mathematical probability, Oxford University Press. J. L. Coolidge (1931) A Treatise on Algebraic Plane Curves, Oxford University Press (Dover Publications 2004). J. L. Coolidge (1940) A history of geometrical methods, Oxford University Press (Dover Publications 2003). J. L. Coolidge (1945) History of the conic sections and quadric surfaces, The Clarendon Press. J. L. Coolidge (1949) The Mathematics Of Great Amateurs, Oxford University Press (Dover Publications 1963).