Lillian Rosanoff Lieber

Lillian Rosanoff Lieber (July 26, 1886 in Nicolaiev, Russian Empire – July 11, 1986 in Queens, New York) was a Russian-American mathematician and popular author. She often teamed up with her illustrator husband, Hugh Gray Lieber, to produce works.

Life and career

Early life and education Lieber was one of four children of Abraham H. and Clara (Bercinskaya) Rosanoff. Her brothers were Denver publisher Joseph Rosenberg, psychiatrist Aaron Rosanoff, and chemist Martin André Rosanoff. Aaron and Martin changed their names to sound more Russian and less Jewish. Lieber moved to the US with her family in 1891. She received her A.B. from Barnard College in 1908, her M.A. from Columbia University in 1911, and her Ph.D. in chemistry from Clark University in 1914, under Martin's direction; at Clark, Solomon Lefschetz was a classmate. She married Hugh Gray Lieber on October 27, 1926. Over her career she published some 17 books, which were written in a unique, free-verse style and illustrated with whimsical line drawings by her husband. Her highly accessible writings were praised by no less than Albert Einstein, Cassius Jackson Keyser, Eric Temple Bell, and S. I. Hayakawa. Concerning her book, The Education of T. C. MITS, Dorothy Canfield Fisher said:

This is quite different from any other book you ever bought... full of mathematics and full of humor... also full of a deep, healing philosophy of life, reassuring, strengthening, [and] humane..."

She edited several volumes of Galois lectures, including Martin's A Practical Simplification of the Method of Least Squares, several talks by Alonzo Church, and Lattice Theory by Garrett Birkhoff.

Works Although her works were broadly influential (including a special paperback edition of The Education of T. C. MITS that was circulated to American servicemen during World War II), they remained out of print for decades. Starting in 2007, publisher Paul Dry Books has reissued The Education of T.C. MITS, Infinity, and The Einstein Theory of Relativity. 1932 Galois and the Theory of Groups, Science Press Printing Company, Lancaster, PA. 1936 The Einstein Theory of Relativity, Science Press Printing Company, Lancaster, PA. 1940 Non-Euclidean Geometry; or, Three Moons in Mathesis, Science Press Printing Company, Lancaster, PA. 1949 The Einstein Theory of Relativity, D. Dobson, London. 1953, 2008 Infinity: Beyond the Beyond the Beyond, Edited & Foreword by Barry Mazur, Paul Dry Books, Rinehart, NY. 1954 Mits, Wits, and Logic, (Revised Edition) Galois Institute of Mathematics and Art, Brooklyn, NY. 1956 Human Values of Modern Mathematics a Book of Essays, Galois Institute of Mathematics and Art, Brooklyn, NY. 1959 Lattice Theory: The Atomic Age in Mathematics, Galois Institute of Mathematics and Art, Brooklyn, NY. 1960 Mits, Wits, and Logic, (3d Edition) W. W. Norton & Company, NY. 1961 Human Values and Science, Art and Mathematics, (1st Edition) W. W. Norton & Company, NY. 1961 Galois and the Theory of Groups: A Bright Star in Mathesis, Galois Institute of Mathematics and Art, Brooklyn, NY. 1963 Mathematics: First S-t-e-p-s, F. Watts, NY. 2007 The Education of T. C. MITS: What Modern Mathematics Means to You, Foreword by Barry Mazur, Paul Dry Books, Philadelphia, PA. 2008 The Einstein theory of Relativity: A Trip To the Fourth Dimension, Paul Dry Books, Philadelphia, PA. 2017 Take a Number: Mathematics for the Two Billion, Dover Publications, Mineola, NY.