# Basil Gordon

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American mathematician

Basil Gordon Born (1931-12-23)December 23, 1931 Died January 12, 2012(2012-01-12) (aged 80) Alma mater California Institute of Technology Scientific career Fields Mathematics Institutions UCLA Doctoral advisor Tom M. Apostol Doctoral students Robert Guralnick Ken Ono

**Basil Gordon** (December 23, 1931 – January 12, 2012) was a [mathematician](/source/Mathematician) at [UCLA](/source/UCLA), specializing in [number theory](/source/Number_theory) and [combinatorics](/source/Combinatorics).[1] He obtained his Ph.D. at [California Institute of Technology](/source/California_Institute_of_Technology) under the supervision of [Tom Apostol](/source/Tom_M._Apostol). [Ken Ono](/source/Ken_Ono) was one of his students.

Gordon is well known for Göllnitz–Gordon identities, generalizing the [Rogers–Ramanujan identities](/source/Rogers%E2%80%93Ramanujan_identities).[2] He also posed the still-unsolved [Gaussian moat](/source/Gaussian_moat) problem in 1962.[3]

Gordon was drafted into the [US Army](/source/US_Army), where he worked with the former [Nazi](/source/Nazi) [rocket scientist](/source/Rocket_scientist) [Wernher von Braun](/source/Wernher_von_Braun). Gordon's calculations of the [gravitational interactions](/source/Gravity) of [earth](/source/Earth), moon, and satellite contributed to the success and longevity of [Explorer I](/source/Explorer_I), which launched in 1958 and remained in orbit until 1970.[4] He was the step-grandson of General [George Barnett](/source/George_Barnett) and is a descendant of the Gordon family of British [distillers](/source/Distiller), producers of [Gordon's Gin](/source/Gordon's_Gin).

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** ["Basil Gordon Obituary: View Basil Gordon's Obituary by Los Angeles Times"](http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/latimes/obituary.aspx?n=basil-gordon&pid=155716795). Legacy.com. Retrieved 2012-03-23.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** [Krishnaswami Alladi](/source/Krishnaswami_Alladi) (2013) [Remembering Basil Gordon](https://www.ams.org/notices/201307/rnoti-p856.pdf), 1931-2012, [NAMS](/source/Notices_of_the_American_Mathematical_Society) **60**(7), 856-865.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Gethner, Ellen; [Wagon, Stan](/source/Stan_Wagon); Wick, Brian (1998), "A stroll through the Gaussian primes", *The American Mathematical Monthly*, **105** (4): 327–337, [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.2307/2589708](https://doi.org/10.2307%2F2589708), [JSTOR](/source/JSTOR_(identifier)) [2589708](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2589708), [MR](/source/MR_(identifier)) [1614871](https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1614871).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** ["Basil Gordon Obituary: View Basil Gordon's Obituary by Los Angeles Times"](http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/latimes/obituary.aspx?n=basil-gordon&pid=155716795). Legacy.com. Retrieved 2012-08-16.

## External links

- [Basil Gordon](https://mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=1490) at the [Mathematics Genealogy Project](/source/Mathematics_Genealogy_Project)

- [Weisstein, Eric W.](/source/Eric_W._Weisstein) ["Göllnitz–Gordon identities"](https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Goellnitz-GordonIdentities.html). *[MathWorld](/source/MathWorld)*.

- [Alladi, Krishnaswami](/source/Krishnaswami_Alladi); [Andrews, George](/source/George_Andrews_(mathematician)); Ono, Ken; McIntosh, Richard J. (2006). ["On the work of Basil Gordon"](https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.jcta.2005.10.004). *Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A*. **113** (1): 21–38. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1016/j.jcta.2005.10.004](https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.jcta.2005.10.004).

- [In memoriam: Basil Gordon, Professor of Mathematics, Emeritus, 1931 – 2012](https://web.archive.org/web/20120401233330/http://www.math.ucla.edu/gordon.shtml), UCLA Mathematics Department website

- [Some Tauberian Theorems connected with the Prime Number Theorem](https://thesis.library.caltech.edu/1063/1/Gordon_b_1956.pdf), Basil Gordon, PhD thesis, 1956

Authority control databases International ISNI VIAF GND FAST WorldCat National United States France BnF data Czech Republic Netherlands Israel Academics CiNii Mathematics Genealogy Project Association for Computing Machinery Scopus zbMATH DBLP MathSciNet People Deutsche Biographie Other IdRef Yale LUX

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