Chan Davis
Encyclopedia
Horace Chandler Davis is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

-Canadian mathematician, writer, and educator.

He was born in Ithaca, New York
Ithaca, New York
The city of Ithaca, is a city in upstate New York and the county seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca-Tompkins County metropolitan area...

, to parents Horace B. Davis and Marian R. Davis. In 1948 he married Natalie Zemon Davis
Natalie Zemon Davis
Natalie Zemon Davis is a Canadian and American historian of the early modern period. She is currently a professor of history at the University of Toronto in Canada. Her work originally focused on France, but has since broadened to include other parts of Europe, North America, and the Caribbean...

; they have three children. His father was a member of the CPUSA.

He moved to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 in the early 1960s and began teaching at the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

. He has lived in Canada longer than he lived in the US.

Mathematics

In 1950 he received a doctorate in mathematics from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

.

His principal research investigations involve linear algebra
Linear algebra
Linear algebra is a branch of mathematics that studies vector spaces, also called linear spaces, along with linear functions that input one vector and output another. Such functions are called linear maps and can be represented by matrices if a basis is given. Thus matrix theory is often...

 and operator theory
Operator theory
In mathematics, operator theory is the branch of functional analysis that focuses on bounded linear operators, but which includes closed operators and nonlinear operators.Operator theory also includes the study of algebras of operators....

 in Hilbert space
Hilbert space
The mathematical concept of a Hilbert space, named after David Hilbert, generalizes the notion of Euclidean space. It extends the methods of vector algebra and calculus from the two-dimensional Euclidean plane and three-dimensional space to spaces with any finite or infinite number of dimensions...

. Furthermore he has made contributions to numerical analysis
Numerical analysis
Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation for the problems of mathematical analysis ....

, geometry
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

, and algebraic logic
Algebraic logic
In mathematical logic, algebraic logic is the study of logic presented in an algebraic style.What is now usually called classical algebraic logic focuses on the identification and algebraic description of models appropriate for the study of various logics and connected problems...

. He is one of the eponyms of the Davis–Kahan theorem. In total Chandler Davis has written around eighty research papers in mathematics.

He is currently one of the co-Editors-in-Chief of the Mathematical Intelligencer
Mathematical Intelligencer
The Mathematical Intelligencer is a mathematical journal published by Springer Verlag that aims at a conversational and scholarly tone, rather than the technical and specialist tone more common amongst such journals.-Mathematical Conversations:...

.

Fiction writing

He began his writing career in Astounding Science Fiction in 1946. From 1946 through 1962 he produced a spate of science fiction stories, mostly published there. One of the earliest, published May 1946, was The Nightmare, later the lead story in A Treasury of Science Fiction, edited by Groff Conklin
Groff Conklin
Edward Groff Conklin was a leading science fiction anthologist. He edited 40 anthologies of science fiction, one of mystery stories , wrote books on home improvement and was a freelance writer on scientific subjects as well as a published poet...

; it argued for a national policy of decentralizing industry to evade nuclear attacks by terrorists. He also issued the fanzine "Blitherings" in the 1940s.

He attended Torcon I, the 6th
6th World Science Fiction Convention
The 6th World Science Fiction Convention, also known as Torcon, was held July 3–5, 1948, at RAI Purdy Studios in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was the first time the convention was held outside the United States....

 World Science Fiction Convention in 1948, and appeared at the 2010 SFContario
SFContario
SFContario is a general-interest science fiction convention held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Society of Upper Canada.The first convention took place on November 19–21, 2010, at the Ramada Plaza Hotel in Toronto...

 science fiction convention
Science fiction convention
Science fiction conventions are gatherings of fans of various forms of speculative fiction including science fiction and fantasy. Historically, science fiction conventions had focused primarily on literature, but the purview of many extends to such other avenues of expression as movies and...

.

Politics

Davis came from a radical family and has identified himself as a socialist and former member of the Communist Party of America.

Davis—along with two other professors, Mark Nickerson and Clement Markert
Clement Markert
Clement Lawrence Markert was an American biologist credited with the discovery of isozymes...

—refused to cooperate with the House Unamerican Activities Committee and was subsequently dismissed from the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

. Davis was then sentenced to a six-month prison term where he was able to do some research. A paper from this era has the following acknowledgement:
"Research supported in part by the Federal Prison System. Opinions expressed in this paper are the author's and are not necessarily those of the Bureau of Prisons."

The Federal government released Davis from prison in 1960. After his release, Davis moved to Canada, where he currently resides.

In 1991, the University of Michigan Senate initiated the annual Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom. Recent speakers have included: Cass Sunstein
Cass Sunstein
Cass R. Sunstein is an American legal scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics, who currently is the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration...

 (2008), Nadine Strossen
Nadine Strossen
Nadine Strossen was president of the American Civil Liberties Union from February 1991 to October 2008. She was the first woman and the youngest person to ever lead the ACLU. A professor at New York Law School, Professor Strossen sits on the Council on Foreign Relations...

 (2007), Bill Keller
Bill Keller
Bill Keller is a writer for the The New York Times, of which Keller was the executive editor from July 2003 until September 2011. On June 2, 2011, Keller announced that he would step down from the position to become a full-time writer...

 (2006), Floyd Abrams
Floyd Abrams
Floyd Abrams is an American attorney at Cahill Gordon & Reindel. He is an expert on constitutional law, and many arguments in the briefs he has written before the United States Supreme Court have been adopted as United States Constitutional interpretative law as it relates to the First Amendment...

 (2005), and Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...

 (2004).

External links

  • Biography at the University of Regina
    University of Regina
    The University of Regina is a public research university located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Founded in 1911 as a private denominational high school of the Methodist Church of Canada, it began an association with the University of Saskatchewan as a junior college in 1925, and was disaffiliated...

    's Department of Mathematics & Statistics
  • Davis's story It Walks in Beauty at Sci Fiction
    Sci Fiction
    Sci Fiction was an online magazine which ran from 2000 to 2005. At one time, it was the leading online science fiction magazine. Published by Syfy and edited by Ellen Datlow, the work won multiple awards before it was discontinued.- History :...

  • Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture Series on Academic and Intellectual Freedom
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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