mathematics

Paul Sally

Paul Sally is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Paul Sally rather than just read about it. In short: Paul Joseph Sally Jr. (January 29, 1933 – December 30, 2013) was a professor of mathematics at the University of Chicago, where he was the director of undergraduate studies for 30 years.

Key takeaways

Paul Sally belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Paul Sally to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Paul Sally from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Paul Joseph Sally Jr. (January 29, 1933 – December 30, 2013) was a professor of mathematics at the University of Chicago, where he was the director of undergraduate studies for 30 years. His research areas were p-adic analysis and representation theory.

Life and education Sally was born in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts on January 29, 1933. He was a star basketball player at Boston College High School. He received his BS and MS degrees from Boston College in 1954 and 1956. After a short career in Boston area high schools and at Boston College, he entered the first class of mathematics graduate students at Brandeis in 1957, and earned his PhD in 1965. During his graduate career he married Judith D. Sally and had three children in three years. David, the oldest, is a Visiting Associate Professor of Business Administration at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, Stephen is a partner at White & Case (previously Ropes & Gray), and Paul, the youngest, is Superintendent at New Trier High School. Sally was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1948. The condition resulted in his use of an eye patch and two prosthetic legs, which caused him to be widely referred to as "Professor Pirate," and "The Math Pirate" around the University of Chicago campus. He was known to detest cell phones in class and destroyed several over the years by inviting students to stomp on them or by throwing them out of a window.

Career Sally joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1965 and taught there until his death. He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study from 1967–68, 1971–72, 1981–82, and 1983–84. While at the IAS he collaborated with Joseph Shalika. In 1983, he became the first director of the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project, which is responsible for the Everyday Mathematics program (also called "Chicago math"). He founded Seminars for Elementary Specialists and Mathematics Educators (SESAME) in 1992. He co-founded the Young Scholars Program with Dr. Diane Herrmann in 1988, providing mathematical enrichment for gifted Chicago-area students in grades 7–12.

Death

Sally died December 30, 2013, aged 80, from congestive heart failure, at the University of Chicago Hospital, and was buried at Maryhill Catholic Cemetery in Niles, Illinois.

Awards Amoco Foundation Award for Long-Term Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 1995 American Mathematical Society Distinguished Service Award, 2000 One of the Deborah and Franklin Haimo Awards for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics of the Mathematical Association of America, 2002 Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, 2012.

Selected publications Sally, P.J. Jr.; Shalika, J.A. (1968). "Characters of the discrete series of representations of SL(2) over a local field". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 61 (4). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.: 1231–1237. Bibcode:1968PNAS...61.1231S. doi:10.1073/pnas.61.4.1231. PMC 225245. PMID 16591722. Sally, Judith (2003). Trimathlon: A Workout Beyond the School Curriculum. AK Peters, Ltd. ISBN 978-1-56881-184-0. Sally, Paul J. Jr.; Herrmann, Diane L. (2004). Number, Shape and Symmetry: an Introduction to Mathematics. Pacific Grove: Brooks Cole. ISBN 0-534-40539-8. Sally, Paul J. Jr.; Herrmann, Diane L. (2005). Number Theory and Geometry for College Students. Pacific Grove: Brooks Cole. ISBN 0-534-40536-3. Sally, Judith (2007). Roots to Research: A Vertical Development of Mathematical Problems. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society. ISBN 978-0-8218-4403-8. Sally, Paul J. Jr. (2008). Tools of the Trade: Introduction to Advanced Mathematics. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society. ISBN 978-0-8218-4634-6. Sally, Paul J. Jr. (2013). Fundamentals of Mathematical Analysis. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society. ISBN 978-0-8218-9141-4.

References

External links Paul Sally at IMDb Paul Sally at the Mathematics Genealogy Project

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Paul Sally

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Paul Sally claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Paul Sally before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Paul Sally ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Paul Sally

In research: Paul Sally appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Paul Sally in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Paul Sally is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1933 births, 2013 deaths, 20th-century American mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Paul Sally outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Paul Sally in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Paul Sally means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Paul Sally out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Paul Sally in simple terms?

Paul Joseph Sally Jr. (January 29, 1933 – December 30, 2013) was a professor of mathematics at the University of Chicago, where he was the director of undergraduate studies for 30 years.

Why does Paul Sally matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Paul Sally?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Paul Sally.