author
Derrick Norman Lehmer
1867–1938
A patient explorer of prime numbers, he spent decades building factor tables and practical methods that helped shape modern computational number theory. His work also helped launch a family tradition in mathematics, with his son Derrick Henry Lehmer becoming a noted number theorist as well.
1 Audiobook
An Elementary Course in Synthetic Projective Geometry
by Derrick Norman Lehmer
About the author
Born in Indiana in 1867, Derrick Norman Lehmer was an American mathematician best known for his work in number theory. Reliable biographical sources agree that he studied at the University of Nebraska, later taught there, and went on to join the University of California, Berkeley, where he spent much of his career.
Lehmer became especially known for creating extensive factor tables and for designing mechanical aids for factoring large numbers. That mix of theory and hands-on ingenuity made his work unusually practical, and it gave later mathematicians useful tools for tackling difficult problems about primes and divisibility.
He died in Berkeley, California, in 1938. Today he is remembered not only for his own research, but also for helping lay the groundwork for later computational approaches to number theory.