Northwestern University
Which employer did Robert Lee Moore work for from 1908 to 1911?
Robert Lee Moore Robert Lee Moore ( November 14 , 1882 – October 4 , 1974 ) was an American mathematician who taught for many years at the University of Texas . He is known for his work in general topology , for the Moore method of teaching university mathematics , and for his racist treatment of African-American mathematics students . Life . Although Moores father was reared in New England and was of New England ancestry , he fought in the American Civil War on the side of the Confederacy . After the war , he ran a hardware store in Dallas , then little more than a railway stop , and raised six children , of whom Robert , named after the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia , was the fifth . Moore entered the University of Texas at the unusually youthful age of 15 , in 1898 , already knowing calculus thanks to self-study . He completed the B.Sc . in three years instead of the usual four ; his teachers included G . B . Halsted and L . E . Dickson . After a year as a teaching fellow at Texas , he taught high school for a year in Marshall , Texas . An assignment of Halsteds led Moore to prove that one of Hilberts axioms for geometry was redundant . When E . H . Moore ( no relation ) , who headed the Department of Mathematics at the University of Chicago , and whose research interests were on the foundations of geometry , heard of Roberts feat , he arranged for a scholarship that would allow Robert to study for a doctorate at Chicago . Oswald Veblen supervised Moores 1905 thesis , titled Sets of Metrical Hypotheses for Geometry . Moore then taught one year at the University of Tennessee , two years at Princeton University , and three years at Northwestern University . In 1910 , he married Margaret MacLelland Key of Brenham , Texas ; they had no children . In 1911 , he took up a position at the University of Pennsylvania . In 1920 , Moore returned to the University of Texas at Austin as an associate professor and was promoted to full professor three years later . In 1951 , he went on half pay but continued to teach five classes a year , including a section of freshman calculus , until the University authorities forced his definitive retirement in 1969 , his 87th year . In 1973 , the University of Texas honored him by giving the name Moore Hall to a new building housing the physics , mathematics , and astronomy departments . Because of Moores racism , in one of the changes following the George Floyd protests the University changed the name to Physics , Mathematics , and Astronomy Building . A strong supporter of the American Mathematical Society , he presided over it , 1936–38 . He edited its Colloquium Publications , 1929–33 , and was the editor-in-chief , 1930–33 . In 1931 , he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences . Topologist . According to the bibliography in Wilder ( 1976 ) , Moore published 67 papers and one monograph , his 1932 Foundations of Point Set Theory . He is primarily remembered for his work on the foundations of topology , a topic he first touched on in his Ph.D . thesis . By the time Moore returned to the University of Texas , he had published 17 papers on point-set topology—a term he coined—including his 1915 paper On a set of postulates which suffice to define a number-plane , giving an axiom system for plane topology . The Moore plane , Moores road space , Moore space , and the normal Moore space conjecture are named in his honor . Unusual teacher . Robert Lee Moore is known to have supervised 50 doctoral dissertations , almost all at Texas , including those of R . H . Bing , F . Burton Jones , John R . Kline , Edwin Evariste Moise , Mary Ellen Rudin , Gordon Whyburn , Richard Davis Anderson , and Raymond Louis Wilder . Moore has been described as having been one of the most charismatic and inspiring university teachers of mathematics ever active in the United States . Accounts have been given of his ability to teach students who had never previously distinguished themselves in mathematics how to do proofs . He went out of his way to teach elementary and service courses every year , and actually forbade his pre-doctoral level students from consulting the mathematical literature . It was while attending lectures at the University of Chicago that Moore first hit on his original teaching methods . Finding these lectures rather boring , even mind dulling , he would liven up a lecture by running a race in his mind with the lecturer , by trying to discover the proof of an announced theorem before the lecturer had finished his presentation . Moore often won this silent race , and when he did not , he felt that he was better off from having made the attempt . It was at the University of Pennsylvania , while teaching a course on the foundations of geometry , that Moore first tried out the teaching methods that came to be known as the Moore method . The success of this method led others to adopt it and similar methods . Racism . Moores record as a teacher of mathematics has been tarnished by his racism towards black students . Most of Moores career was spent in a racially segregated part of the United States . African-American students were prohibited from even enrolling at the University of Texas until the late 1950s , and Moore himself was strongly in favor of segregation . After the University of Texas began admitting African-American students , he refused to allow them into his classes , even for mathematics graduate students such as Vivienne Malone-Mayes . He told another African-American mathematics student , Walker E . Hunt , you are welcome to take my course but you start with a C and can only go down from there . On one occasion he walked out of a talk by a student , his academic grandchild , after discovering that the speaker was African-American . Moore was also known for repeatedly claiming that female students were inferior to male students , and , though less pronounced than his racism , for his antisemitism . However , while Moores racism is confirmed by several first-hand accounts of his refusal to teach African-American students , the often-repeated description of him as a misogynist and antisemite is based largely on his oral remarks . Some of the sources reporting these remarks , such as Mary Ellen Rudin , also point out that in fact he encouraged females who showed mathematical talent and that he had Jewish students , such as Edwin E . Moise ( who was asked about Moores anti-Semitic reputation in an interview ) and Martin Ettlinger , and close colleagues , such as Hyman J . Ettlinger . His encouragement of Rudin and other white female students is documented and between 1949 and 1970 ( the earliest period when national data are known ) 4 of Moores 31 doctoral students ( 13% ) were female , while nationally 175 were female out of 2646 doctoral graduates in mathematics and statistics ( 7% ) . Honors . - The Robert Lee Moore Hall , a classroom building at the University of Texas , was named after Moore from its construction in 1972–2020 . In 2020 , following complaints and petitions in 2019 and then the 2020 George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter movement , it was renamed to the Physics , Math and Astronomy Building . Quotations . - That student is taught the best who is told the least . Moore , quote in Parker ( 2005 : vii ) . - I hear , I forget . I see , I remember . I do , I understand . ( Chinese proverb that was a favorite of Moores . Quoted in Halmos , P.R . ( 1985 ) I want to be a mathematician : an automathography . Springer-Verlag : 258 ) References . - Jones , F . Burton , 1997 , The Beginning of Topology in the United States and the Moore School in C . E . Aull and R . Louwen , eds. , Handbook of the History of General Topology , Vol . 1 . Kluwer : 97–103 . - Lewis , Albert C. , 1990 , R . L . Moore in Dictionary of Scientific Biography , vol . 18 . Charles Scribners Sons : 651–53 . - Moore , R . L. , 1970 ( 1932 ) . Foundations of Point Set Theory . Vol . 13 of the AMS Colloquium Publications . American Mathematical Society . - Wilder , R . L. , 1976 , Robert Lee Moore 1882–1974 , Bulletin of the AMS 82 : 417–27 . Includes a complete bibliography of Moores writings . Further reading . - Biography , with extensive list of academic descendants of R . L . Moore and their publications . External links . - The Legacy of Robert Lee Moore Project . - Links to biographical material and the Moore method .