Carl Douglas Olds (1912-1979)

Carl Douglas Olds was born on May 11, 1912, in Wanganui, New Zealand. He received all his degrees from Stanford University, his PhD in 1943 being under J.V. Uspensky. From 1935 to 1940 and in the summer of 1942, he was an acting instructor at Stanford University and from 1940 to 1945, an assistant professor at Purdue University. From 1945 to his retirement, he was at Californina State University, San Jose, where he advanced through the ranks to full professor.

Professor Olds served the mathematical community extensively, especially through the Mathematical Association of America. He was awarded the 1973 Chauvenet Prize for his paper The Simple Continued Fraction Expansion of e, Amer. Math. Monthly 77 (1970) 968-974.

He was a skilful teacher and made contributions to number theory. His book Continued Fractions, Random House 1963, is a classic.

The book Geometry of numbers, C.D. Olds, A. Lax, G. Davidoff, New Library Series 41, MAA 2000 (Review by Henry Cohn) was based on notes of C.D. Olds.

(Based on Amer. Math. Monthly 80 (1973) page 120.)

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Last updated 15th April 2014