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Cuthbert Edmund Cullis

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Cuthbert Edmund Cullis (15 April 1868 – 20 March 1954) was an English mathematician who worked as a professor of mathematics at the University of Calcutta and was influential in standardizing notation and conventions in the algebra of matrices and determinants.

Life and work

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Cullis was the son of Frederick John, a dock surveyor in Gloucester and Louisa (née Corbett) Cullis. One of his two sisters, Winifred C. Cullis, became a physiologist. He was educated at King Edward High School, Birmingham after which he joined Caius College, Cambridge. After being seventh wrangler in 1891 he went to Jena, Germany and received a doctorate under Carl Johannes Thomae with a thesis titled Die Bewegung Durchlöcherter Körper in einer Inkompressiblen Flüssigkeit. He became a lecturer at Hartley College and moved to the University of Calcutta in 1910 where he served as Hardinge Professor of Mathematics until his retirement in 1925.[1]

Cullis published extensively in the Bulletin of the Calcutta Mathematical Society and among his contribution was the work demonstrating that the Moebius ring was a section of the cubic surface defined by:

y(x2+y2+z2-a2)-2z(x2+y2+ax)=0

His most important work was Matrices and Determinoids (1913-1925) to be published in three volumes although only two volumes and a part of the third volume were finally published. He defined what is now called the Cullis-Radić determinant for rectangular matrices.[2][3]

Cullis died in Gloucester and bequeathed £1000 to Gonville & Caius college to support needy students.[4]

References

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  1. ^ Turnbull, H. W. (1955). "Cuthbert Edmund Cullis". Journal of the London Mathematical Society. 30 (2): 252–255. doi:10.1112/jlms/s1-30.2.252.
  2. ^ Nakagami, Yoshiomi; Yanai, Haruo (2007). "On Cullis' determinant for rectangular matrices". Linear Algebra and Its Applications. 422 (2–3): 422–441. doi:10.1016/j.laa.2006.11.001.
  3. ^ Makarewicz, Anna; Pikuta, Piotr (2020). "Cullis-Radić determinant of a rectangular matrix which has a number of identical columns". Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Sklodowska, sectio A – Mathematica. 74 (2): 41. doi:10.17951/a.2020.74.2.41-60. ISSN 2083-7402. S2CID 234396812.
  4. ^ ACAD - A Cambridge Alumni Database
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