Alexander Oppenheim

Born February 4th 1903, died December 13th 1997.
Sir Alexander Oppenheim was born in Salford, Lancashire, his first language being Yiddish. After graduating from Oxford in 1927, he gained a Chicago PhD in 1930 with a thesis Minima of Indefinite Quaternary Quadratic Forms under L.E. Dickson.
After a year lecturing at Edinburgh University, he accepted a professorship at the Raffles College, Singapore. During the war he was a prisoner at the Changi camp.
After the war he returned to Raffles College, retiring in 1967. He then became a professor at Reading University (1966-68) and head of the mathematics departments of the University of Ghana (1968-73) and Benin, Nigeria (1973-77).

Acknowlegment: The above summary is based on an article in the Guardian (London), 23rd January 1998 by Eric Miller.

Publications of Alexander Oppenheim

  1. The prisoner's walk: an exercise in number theory, Arabian J. Sci. Engrg. 9 (1984), no. 3, 283-284
  2. Inequalities involving elements of triangles, quadrilaterals or tetrahedra, Univ. Beograd. Publ. Elektrotehn. Fak. Ser. Mat. Fiz. No. 461-497 (1974) 257-263
  3. The representation of real numbers by infinite series of rationals, Acta Arith. 21 (1972) 391-398
  4. Some inequalities for triangles, Univ. Beograd. Publ. Elektrotehn. Fak. Ser. Mat. Fiz. No. 357-380 (1971) 21-28
  5. Representations of real numbers by series of reciprocals of odd integers, Acta Arith. 18 (1971) 115-124
  6. The irrationality or rationality of certain infinite series, 1971 Studies in Pure Mathematics (Presented to Richard Rado), 195-201 Academic Press, London
  7. On the Diophantine equation x3+y3-z3=px+py-qz, Univ. Beograd. Publ. Elektrotehn. Fak. Ser. Mat. Fiz. No. 230-241, 1968, 33-35
  8. On inequalities connecting arithmetic means and geometric means of two sets of three positive numbers, II. Univ. Beograd. Publ. Elektrotehn. Fak. Ser. Mat. Fiz. No. 210-228 (1968) 21-24
  9. Some inequalities for a spherical triangle and an internal point, Univ. Beograd. Publ. Elektrotehn. Fak. Ser. Mat. Fiz. No. 200-209 (1967) 13-16
  10. Inequalities for a simplex and an internal point, Univ. Beograd. Publ. Elektrotehn. Fak. Ser. Mat. Fiz. No. 200-209 (1967) 17-20
  11. The irrationality of certain infinite products, J. London Math. Soc. 43 (1968) 115-118
  12. On the Diophantine equation x3+y3+z3=x+y+z, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 17 (1966) 493-496
  13. On inequalities connecting arithmetic means and geometric means of two sets of three positive numbers, Math. Gaz. 49 (1965) 160-162
  14. The rational integral solution of the equation a(x3+y3)=b(u3+v3) and allied Diophantine equations, Acta Arith. 9 (1964) 221-226
  15. New inequalities for a triangle and an internal point, Ann. Mat. Pura Appl. (4) 53 (1961) 157-163
  16. The Erdös inequality and other inequalities for a triangle, Amer. Math. Monthly 68 (1961) 226-230; addendum, 349
  17. A note on continued fractions, Canad. J. Math. 12 (1960) 303-308
  18. On the Diophantine equation x2+y2+z2+2xyz=1, Amer. Math. Monthly 64 (1957) 101-103
  19. with Barnes, E. S., The non-negative values of a ternary quadratic form, J. London Math. Soc. 30 (1955) 429-439
  20. with Diananda, P. H.,Criteria for irrationality of certain classes of numbers, II. Amer. Math. Monthly 62 (1955) 222-225
  21. Least determinants of integral quadratic forms, Duke Math. J. 20 (1953) 391-393
  22. Inequalities connected with definite Hermitian forms, II. Amer. Math. Monthly 61 (1954) 463-466
  23. On indefinite binary quadratic forms, Acta Math. 91 (1954) 43-50
  24. Criteria for irrationality of certain classes of numbers, Amer. Math. Monthly 61 (1954) 235-241
  25. On the representation of real numbers by products of rational numbers, Quart. J. Math., Oxford Ser. (2) 4 (1953) 303-307
  26. One-sided inequalities for quadratic forms. II, Quaternary forms. Proc. London Math. Soc. (3) 3 (1953) 417-429
  27. One-sided inequalities for quadratic forms. I, Ternary forms. Proc. London Math. Soc. (3) 3 (1953) 328-337
  28. Value of quadratic forms. III, Monatsh. Math. 57 (1953) 97-101
  29. Values of quadratic forms. II, Quart. J. Math., Oxford Ser. (2) 4 (1953) 60-66
  30. Values of quadratic forms. I, Quart. J. Math., Oxford Ser. (2) 4 (1953) 54-59
  31. One-sided inequalities for Hermitian quadratic forms, Monatsh. Math. 57 (1953) 1-5
  32. A positive definite quadratic form as the sum of two positive definite quadratic forms. II, J. London Math. Soc. 21 (1946) 257-264
  33. A positive definite quadratic form as the sum of two positive definite quadratic forms. I, J. London Math. Soc. 21 (1946) 252-257
  34. Remark on the minimum of quadratic forms, J. London Math. Soc. 21 (1946) 251-252
  35. Two lattice-point problems, Quart. J. Math., Oxford Ser. 18 (1947) 17-24
  36. Rational approximations to irrationals, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 47 (1941) 602-604
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Last updated 27th June 2002