Talk:Mark Barr

Potential references
"...thanks to American mathematician Mark Barr. He took phi from the initial letter of the name of the Greek sculptor, Phidias..." and the search terms Dr. "Mark Barr" mathematics 1950 provides an obituary in the New York Times for Dec 16, 1950 says, "Dr. Mark Barr, a pioneer electrical editor and physicist, who was born a British subject in Pennsylvania, died yesterday at a home for elderly..." and "In 1895 he took a degree in physics and mathematics at London University. He won the Institution of Electrical Engineers Premium prize and the Paris Gold Medal for his work, and contributed many papers on advanced subjects, including new methods of computing the roots of, equations..." (NYT, Dec 16, 1950) --Dual Freq (talk) 02:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Also: http://books.google.com/books?client=firefox-a&um=1&q=%22Mark+Barr%22+phi ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * All of those books just repeat the same factoid, unsourced as far as I can tell. But it's good you found the NYT obit -- that may be enough to make him notable after all. Dicklyon (talk) 07:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * From that book, it appears that we may learn more from the newspaper the Field around 1912 if anyone can find it.  Dicklyon (talk) 15:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * , can you say more about the Field citation? I can't find it via the link you gave.  E Eng  17:46, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * , that book link still works for me. The Curves of Life appendix section II by William Schooling says "I HAVE been asked to give some further account of the &phi; progression, which was first briefly described in the Field on December 14th, 1912."  That's all I know; I'm guess it's a newspaper or magazine; perhaps a math newsletter. Dicklyon (talk) 21:34, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't have access to the full text of the 1950 obituary, it's supposed to be at this link if someone has a web subscription to the NYT online, it would probably fill in the blanks for this stub.--Dual Freq (talk) 21:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * , let's move the discussion here. I'll paraphrase the Times obituary, Dec 16, 1950, p.17, "Mr. Mark Barr":
 * Pioneer electrical engineer and physicist; born in Pennsylvania but as a British citizen; died in Bronx at 79, living there for some years. British Who's Who listed him as having worked with Tesla and Michael Pupin in NYC before 1900. In 1891 became asst ed. of Electrical World (presumably ). "Degree in physics and mathematics at London University", 1895. Won IEE Premium prize and "the Paris Gold Medal". "Many papers on advanced subjects, including new methods of computing the roots of equations. He also pioneered in the field of electrical calculating machinery." Wife Mabel Mary Rickie Barr; sons Philip, Stephen.
 * So, no formal Harvard connection mentioned, but I note you mention at my Talk that ANW implies Barr was at H Business School, so I will still follow up at Harvard. I'll probably have Architecture tomorrow.  E Eng  23:40, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Discussion transferred from User talk:EEng
Do you happen to have access to information about a Mark Barr, who might have been at Harvard around 1924 when Alfred North Whitehead moved there? I can't find much online except for the existence of a letter from Whitehead to Barr about the move. I think this is the same Mark Barr who chose the standard notation for the golden ratio but am not certain because information about him is so sparse. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:04, 16 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Hmmmm. This isn't an easy one, and it doesn't help that there's a Mark Barr in math or CS currently. I don't find anything related to him in a superficial pass over Harvard's archives search, but I have confess I find that system very frustrating; feel free to give it a try yourself and if you find anything there I'll be happy to follow up on this end. I also found this  which may say more about Barr -- hard to tell from the snippet; I assume you can get that yourself, if not let me know.


 * But there's still hope. There is a giant card index of Harvard everybody up to about 100 years ago, but it has to be searched by hand. If you're not in a hurry I'll check it next time I'm there. Also, in the Architecture article, does it give an affiliation for him?  E Eng  22:37, 16 March 2017 (UTC) You're a grownup and everything, so consort with whomever you wish, but... Fox News for the history of mathematics?
 * No hurry, thanks. Unfortunately I can only see the Architecture article in snippet view, but it doesn't seem to show an affiliation. A different page of the same issue (p.48; his article is p.325) calls him a "distinguished mathematician" . I suppose it's possible that he was somewhere else and merely had Harvard connections. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:00, 17 March 2017 (UTC) It wasn't me! Someone else added that source before I got to the article!
 * I've paged the Architecture volume -- Harvard has everything, it's disgustingly luxurious. The Lowe work I linked above appears to be on the shelf at Irvine so I'll leave that to you; someone here has it checked out. Listen, did you ever know a David Rector there?  E Eng  01:13, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Visiting the library physically — what a concept! I'm not sure — I've met a lot of the mathematicians here and forgotten some of their names — but I think not. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:43, 17 March 2017 (UTC)


 * This is getting more interesting. You better get Lowe, because looking again at the snippet, it seems to say he was an "electrical engineer who invented a calculating machine..." (and that doesn't rule out a Harvard connection, or the phi thing, though you might consider MIT as well...). Anyway, that leads to &c. Just so I understand: (a) You're not sure the Architecture Mark Barr is the same as the Whitehead Mark Barr, and (b) you're not sure the Whitehead Mark Barr was at Harvard? If you get Lowe and I get Architecture (I'll send it to you) we'll know a lot more. Now I'm interested.   E  Eng  02:09, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * If they are the same person, looks like I may have been right to rip out the claims that he was American from the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:12, 17 March 2017 (UTC)


 * How does someone get to be American from an article? I thought you got that way either by birth or naturalization. Seriously: Note Schooling's talk of calculating machines, and Barr, in his discussion of $\phi$, so certainly the Whitehead-calculator Barr is interested in 𝜙; that helps. Have you been able to see the Cook book?  E Eng  02:16, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, that one's online at https://archive.org/details/cu31924028937179 — here's a recipe from it. The Schooling reference is definitely about the right Barr, and talks about calculating machines directly before mentioning Barr, so the connection to the inventor is looking very plausible. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:41, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Beware, there are two Barrs in Cook's index.  E Eng  03:49, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, the other one is Archibald Barr. But the text is clear enough about which is which. Given that it consistently refers to them as "Professor Archibald Barr" and "Mr Mark Barr", one may guess that Mark Barr was not a professor. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:00, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Searching for "mark barr" + "linotype" turns up a lot of material about patents on engraving machines, as well as this on a device for performing a certain calculation. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:56, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Lowe turns out to be a gold mine. p.83 (vol.2) has the snippet you saw, the statement that "Barr and his wife were often at the Whiteheads" (in early-1920s Chelsea London) and that "Three years younger than Whitehead, he was British but at home in New York as well." Pages 133–134 have the story of the early-1924 invitation to Whitehead to move to Harvard, with an explanation of Barr's role: he was living in New York and a friend of Henry Osborn Taylor, a friend of Harvard who financed Whitehead's position there. And later in the volume several letters from Whitehead to his son North (incidentally another Harvard professor whose Wikipedia article is somewhat deficient) mention Barr. Page 302, December 1924 (already at Harvard) has a paragraph about a visiting engineer working for a company interested in buying the rights to Barr's calculating machine.Another letter on p.307 (April 1925) has more on this, and also some family details on the Barrs: Mark Barr's wife's name is Mabel and they have a son Stephen (matching something left by a commenter on the article talk page) and for some reason they're in Elyria, Ohio. Finally, on November 1927 (page 330) we get a third letter where Barr and Whitehead appear to have fallen out. Amid much complaining about Barr's character, Whitehead writes "I am very doubtful whether he will keep his post at the business school here." Presumably this means that he was appointed to the Harvard business school sometime between 1925 and 1927? —David Eppstein (talk) 23:16, 17 March 2017 (UTC)


 * , have you see the Who's Who (mentioned in the NYT obit)?  E Eng  18:37, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * No. I also would like to find out more about the "IEE Premium" and "Paris Gold Medal" before adding them to the article. By the way, we're right around the 5x expansion mark now. And I've decided that I like your use of r and moving the references to the end (despite the fact that it prevents some section-only edits because part of the section content is elsewhere) — I just made the same change to North. But the article is still looking like a haphazard collection of anecdotes rather than something with actual structure. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:41, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Found the Paris Gold Medal in another obituary — it is for a calculating machine. Will add. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:03, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The new JIEE obit has a lot more detail about his early life, and makes it clear that the Linotype Mark Barr is the same as the electrical inventor and friend of Whitehead Mark Barr. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:27, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

More possible sources
The phi connection with William Schooling might be clarified in some of the books hits around 1910–1915 here. Dicklyon (talk) 21:45, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

And some patents on calculating machines:, , ,. Dicklyon (talk) 04:05, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * These are addictive -- the guy was very clever.  E Eng  04:18, 19 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Re The Field: in Bridges 2015, Paul Gailiunas ("The Golden Spiral: The Genesis of a Misunderstanding") writes: "After he [Cook] had published Church's theory of phyllotaxis in The Field, William Schooling had written to him with an explanation of the golden section, including a suggestion by Mark Barr that it be called the φ proportion". So unless there is a second publication in The Field, we may be looking in the wrong place for anything more about Barr. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:51, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, well let me know if you change your mind. (The phyllotaxis publication does make it seem more likely that I've identified the right Field.)  E Eng  05:33, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

IEE membership, and James Mark vs Mark
The JIEE obituary says that Mark Barr became a member of the IEE in 1906. This page of elected members from 1906, however, lists James Mark Barr but not Mark Barr. I have the strong impression that JMB is a different person from around the same time. For instance, everything I see about JMB's contributions involves signal processing, waves, and telegraphy, while MB's work is much more electromechanical. Maybe the obituary claim is a mistake? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:10, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to agree, but unless important issues hang on the IEE membership question, we can just put it to one side. We may stumble onto something that resolves it.  E Eng  05:49, 19 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I have to say that this by JMB introduces the tiniest nagging thought that maybe they really are the same person. Note: philosophical introduction, kinda like  (though that kind of writing was popular); subject area (engraving, sort of); work with someone at Westinghouse. Note I said tiniest...  E  Eng  02:40, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * MB was also elected to the Aeronautical Society in 1902 . Is this worth mentioning? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:27, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * This patent has him as James Mark McGinnis Barr. Dicklyon (talk) 05:41, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Nice find! That seems a clear match; it even has the ball bearings (and his mother's maiden name as listed by Who's Who). —David Eppstein (talk) 05:54, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Good work, fellow editors! I guess we'll have to re-run a lot of searches, but that's the price of progress.  E Eng  08:22, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * This paper by JMB has Central Technical College as the affiliation. So unless there were two people by the same name in the same school at the same time (not impossible but unlikely) it's the same guy. I have changed my mind: he seems to have used the "James Mark Barr" name for his student work in the period 1892-1895 at CTC, which was more focused on waves and electromagnetics. I don't see a lot of reason to cite the paper in our article, though. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:05, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Changed your mind about what? Aren't we agreed these are the same guy?  E Eng  21:24, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes. Changed my mind about my initial post in this section, the "strong impression" that JMB (the signal processing guy) was different than MB. They now appear to be the same person writing under slightly different names. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:00, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Fibonacci sequences of higher order
In Mathematical Circus p.165 Martin Gardner writes that Mark Barr invented and published in 1913 the "Fibonacci numbers of higher order" described at Generalizations of Fibonacci numbers. I haven't yet added this to the article because I'm hoping to triangulate from more sources, but this seems worth adding both here and at the generalizations article. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:17, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Still haven't tracked it down, but Gardner writes in a different piece (the Scientific American Vol. II book cited already, p.101): "Stephen Barr, whose father Mark Barr gave phi its name, sent me a clipping of an article by his father (in the London Sketch, about 1913) in which the concept of phi is generalized as follows..." (then proceeding to describe the Fibonacci numbers of higher order). So we're a little closer to an actual citation. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:22, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

❌ As mentioned in another thread, I've been through several years of the Sketch but didn't find it. It's possible I missed it so if there's a specific cite I can get it.  E Eng  00:12, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

The Century
DE, do you have this? If not I'll get it. I think it's him -- from snippet, birthplace Pennsylvania and birthyear are right.  E Eng  22:27, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Also it's the journal of the Century Association, which had only 100 members including him. It's definitely him. We have some volumes of that journal but not the right volume. It looks like I could get it through interlibrary loan but if Harvard has it that might be quicker. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:26, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Century Club, how clever. On my list. Don't forget the Glass Flowers, if you don't mind.  E Eng  23:46, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

✅ (handled in another thread)

EEng's to-get list

 * ❌Field (not pursuing unless we think it's important)
 * ❌Who's Who from lifetime instead of Who Was Who -- also a pain if we don't know in what year(s) he appeared
 * Index at Harvard archives -- Followup: Someone's checking this for me.  E Eng  01:48, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Followup: One of my friends in low places has checked -- nothing in the main archives. However, there's a satellite archives at the Business School which I should also talk to. If I don't get back to you by Thursday, remind me.  E Eng  00:08, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
 * - Well, I finally followed up on this, and Harvard Business School shows him as a research assistant there around 1927. And how did we miss this? There are several directions to take this in; I have some special burdens for the next few weeks, and I'll be traveling some, but I'll get to the bottom of this in due course.  E Eng  20:44, 22 May 2017 (UTC)


 * ✅The Century, "The Man and the Turtle" 1929  pp18, 174, 176 Widener P 137.4 (see also email notes) -- Followup: Sent.  E  Eng  01:48, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
 * ❌Sketch (1913) Getting -- Followup: I spent an afternoon in the British library going over every issue in 1915, coming up goose-eggs. I've now checked a couple of nearby years, still nothing. But it's an uncertain check so I could have missed it.  E Eng  01:48, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅, you were going to check Lowe's citations to see if any of them are in Harvard Archives.  E Eng  04:25, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Right, thanks for the reminder. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:36, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
 * FTR you got back to me on that elsewhere, reporting that there really aren't any cites along those lines.  E Eng  01:48, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

This article needs an infobox
Just pointing it out. Weird it's lacking in a "Good Article" --Loganmac (talk) 18:46, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
 * No article needs an infobox, and having an infobox is specifically not one of the Good Article criteria. See also WP:DISINFOBOX — very frequently, the addition of an infobox makes an article worse, not better. Also, WP:ALLROADSLEADTOINFOBOXES. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:49, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Not judging good article criteria man, just pointing out I found it weird since I'm certain it's the first notable biography I've seen without one. That's all. --Loganmac (talk) 05:44, 23 June 2021 (UTC)