Bernard Society Review - Davidson College

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great deal of college action in that regard. Jackson also led colleagues in implementing a $250,000 Sloan Foundation grant, which was designed to incorporate technology and applied mathematics into the liberal arts curriculum. He worked to extend Davidson’s educational mission by spearheading Project Excel, which brought promising students from the Charlotte Mecklenburg System to campus for classes. His many college responsibilities created mounds of paperwork that covered every horizontal surface of his office, but Jackson kept them meticulously organized and accessible. In 1983 he received the college’s Thomas Jefferson Award for exhibiting through personal influence and teaching the highest example of personal and scholarly integrity. At the time he was cited as “A man of great accomplishment… who has lived his life so always to place the deed before the doer.” His family was always the center of his life, and from that base he extended his hands and heart in service to the wider community. He was an elder and choir member at Davidson College Presbyterian Church, president of the North Mecklenburg High PTSA, assistant treasurer for Our Towns Habitat for Humanity, and for several years was a regular driver for Safe Drive, a program which each weekend night provided Charlotte-area teenagers with a safe ride home when other means were not available. He was also a member of a longstanding group of friends who played contract bridge. The more leisurely pace, which followed his retirement in 1995, allowed him to pursue various pleasures. He enjoyed nurturing favorite plants and flowers, including the propagation of several hundred English boxwood plants whose origin was his maternal grandmother’s home in Drakes Branch. There was also time for travel with his wife of 40 years, Jean Ann Edwards Jackson, and friends. A highlight of his trips abroad was the discovery of moderately priced restaurants, and the meals enjoyed there. He was an active grandfather whose affectionate interest in his grandchildren was returned in full measure. Jackson was diagnosed with cancer in November 2000, and faced his fate and treatments with quiet valor. In their final months together, he and Jean made two vacation trips to Europe with friends, and celebrated their 40th anniversary at the beach with their children and grandchildren. (Thanks to Bill Giduz and the College Communications Office for this article.) Martha Key Bernard: 1920-2002 Martha Key Brewer Bernard, 81, died January 20, 2002. Educated in the public schools of Clarksdale, MS, Stephens College in St. Louis, MO, and Randolph-Macon Women’s College in Lynchburg, VA, she married Richard Bernard in 1943. Living in Charlottesville, VA, and New Haven, CT, while Richard finished his Ph.D. and took up a post at Yale University, she came to Davidson in 1955. A loving wife, devoted mother, and friend, Mrs. Bernard was a member of DCPC, where she served as a Sunday School teacher and was active in many committees. A charter member of the Tuesday Book Club, she was also a member of Colonial Dames and the DAR. A memorial service was held Saturday, January 26, at DCPC. 2
Bernard Lecture By Robert McLean ’03 On October 3, 2001, the Department of Mathematics recognized mathematics majors, minors, and other students interested in mathematics at its annual Bernard Lecture. The keynote speaker was Dr. Carl Pomerance of Bell Laboratories, professor emeritus of the University of Georgia. The Bernard Lecture honors Dr. Richard Bernard, Professor of Mathematics at Davidson from 1955 to 1983. Each year students, faculty and community members gather together for the Lecture as well as the reception and dinner preceding the talk. Chair Stephen Davis and Bernard Society President Andy Schultz ’02 presided over a ceremony inducting Pomerance and members of the classes of 2002 and 2003 into the Bernard Society. After a dinner honoring the new inductees, Pomerance presented his lecture, “Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Paul Erdös, and Me.” As with any good math talk, Pomerance opened with pictures and anecdotes. The pictures and anecdotes involved the life and accomplishments of the famous number theorist Paul Erdös. Pomerance next related several stories and accomplishments regarding Erdös that demonstrated the uniqueness and genius of the famous number theorist. Arguably Erdös’ most famous result involved the prime number theorem originally proved by Hadamard and de la Vallee Poussin. The proof involved complex analysis and it was later conjectured that any proof of the prime number theorem must involve complex analysis. That is, it was believed that there existed no elementary proof of the prime number theorem. However, Erdös and Selberg proved this conjecture false by providing an elementary proof. Pomerance next told a story involving a lecture given by the Polish mathematician Mark (l-r) Chair Stephen Davis, Bernard Society President Andy Schultz ’02, Bernard Lecturer Carl Pomerance, and Society inductee Cindy Moore ’03 Kac. In his lecture, Kac made a conjecture regarding the density of a set of numbers with bounded prime divisors. Erdös was in the audience, and amazingly, before Kac had even completed his lecture, Erdös had discovered and written a proof of Kac’s conjecture. Next, Pomerance spoke about his relationship with Erdös. Pomerance recounted his first contact with Erdös—a letter in which Erdös claimed he could prove a conjecture posed by Pomerance and several colleagues. The conjecture involved the density of Ruth-Aaron Pairs. A Ruth-Aaron pair (a term coined by Pomerance and coauthors) refers to two consecutive positive integers with the peculiar property that the sum the prime factors of the consecutive positive integers is the same. That is, n and n+1 are a Ruth-Aaron pair if the sum of the prime factors of n is equal to the sum of the prime factors of n+1. Pomerance encountered the first Ruth- Aaron pair while watching a baseball game. In fact, it was the famous game in which Hank Aaron hit his 715 th homerun to surpass what was thought to be Babe Ruth’s unbreakable record of 714 career homeruns. Watching the game, Pomerance noticed an unusual property of the numbers 714 3
Page 1: In Memoriam: R. Bruce Jackson, Jr.
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Bernard Society Review - Davidson College

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