Letters between Alfred J. Lotka and Vito Volterra

Abstract

Alfred James Lotka was born on 2 March 1880 at Lemberg in Austria (now Lvov in the Ukraine) of American parents. He received his early schooling in France and Germany, followed by university studies in England at the University of Birmingham. These were followed by graduate courses in physics at Leipzig and Cornell (USA). After moving permanently to the United States, he worked in a wide range of different jobs: for the General Chemical Company, the U.S. Patent Office and the National Bureau of Standards. After his residence at the John Hopkins University, during which he wrote the book that was later to make him famous, Elements of Physical Biology (published in 1925 and then reprinted in 1956 under the title of Elements of Mathematical Biology), he joined the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company of New York. Here he was to work for the rest of his life, in the position of supervisor of the Statistical Bureau. In the period 1938–1939 he was Chairman of the Population Association of America and in 1942 Chairman of the American Statistical Association. Lotka died at Red Bank (New Jersey) on 5 December 1949.