Laurence Chisholm Young (14 July 1905 – 24 December 2000) was a British mathematician known for his contributions to measure theory, the calculus of variations, optimal control theory, and potential theory. He was the son of William Henry Young and Grace Chisholm Young, both prominent mathematicians. He moved to the US in 1949 but never sought American citizenship.

The concept of Young measure is named after him: he also introduced the concept of the generalized curve. and a concept of generalized surface. which later evolved in the concept of varifold.In his commemorative papers describing the research of Almgren, writes that these are "essentially the same class of surfaces". He notes also that Young himself used the same term in a somewhat different context i.e. in .See also the 2015 unpublished essay of his pupil Wendell Fleming. The Young integral also is named after him and has now been generalised in the theory of rough paths..

Life and academic career Laurence Chisholm Young was born in Göttingen,. the fifth of the six children of William Henry Young and Grace Chisholm Young.. He held positions of Professor at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was also a chess grandmaster.Grace Chisholm Young at Biographies of Women Mathematicians

Selected publications Books , available from the Internet archive. . .

Papers . , memoir presented by Stanisław Saks at the session of 16 December 1937 of the Warsaw Society of Sciences and Letters. The free PDF copy is made available by the RCIN –Digital Repository of the Scientifics Institutes. . . . . . . . .

See also Bounded variation Caccioppoli set Measure theory Varifold

Notes

References

Biographical and general references

, including a reply by L. C. Young himself (pages 109–112). .

Scientific references . One of the most complete monographs on the theory of Young measures, strongly oriented to applications in continuum mechanics of fluids. . A thorough scrutiny of Young measures and their various generalization is in Chapter 3 from the perspective of convex compactifications. . . An extended version of with a list of Almgren's publications.

External links

Obituary on University of Wisconsin web site