Tag Archives: mathematician

In conversation: George Daniel Mostow, geometer of the Nth dimension

In awarding Yale’s George Daniel Mostow its 2013 Wolf Foundation Prize in mathematics — one of the field’s premier global awards — the foundation offered this crisp assessment: “Few mathematicians,” it said, “can compete with the breadth, depth, and originality of his works.”

Here Mostow, an emeritus professor since 1998, talks about the English teacher who led him to a life in math, the pleasure of family, high-definition opera, and the Nth dimension — as well as the “eureka!” moment at a New Haven stoplight that secured him a place in the history of geometry.

When did it dawn on you that you wanted to be a professional mathematician?

In high school, mathematics was my favorite subject. I especially enjoyed challenging problems. But I did not know that mathematics was a profession. I am indebted to my high school English teacher who, in my senior year, called me up to his desk to ask about my career plans, and told me that his brother was a mathematician. I decided then and there that mathematics was for me. (more…)

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Mathematician Sees Artistic Side To Father of Computer

This year a series of events around the world will celebrate the work of Alan Turing, the father of the modern computer, as the 100th anniversary of his birthday approaches on June 23. In a book chapter that will be published later this year, mathematician Robert Soare, the founding chairman of the University of Chicago’s computer science department, will propose that Turing’s achievement was artistic as well as scientific.

Soare, the Paul Snowden Russell Distinguished Service Professor in Mathematics and Computer Sciences, has played a leading role in computability theory — the field that Turing founded and which is devoted to determining how effectively complex mathematical problems can be solved. In Mathematical Logic in the 20th Century, Gerald Sacks ranked a paper Soare published in the Annals of Mathematics as one of the century’s 31 most important papers in mathematical logic, including computability theory. (more…)

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