Peter Lax, Mathematician

An Illustrated Memoir

Reuben Hersh (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

253 Seiten

2015
American Mathematical Society (Verlag)
978-1-4704-1708-6 (ISBN)

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This book is a biography of one of the most famous and influential living mathematicians, Peter Lax. He is virtually unique as a preeminent leader in both pure and applied mathematics, fields which are often seen as competing and incompatible. Although he has been an academic for all of his adult life, his biography is not without drama and tragedy. Lax and his family barely escaped to the U.S. from Budapest before the Holocaust descended. He was one of the youngest scientists to work on the Manhattan Project. He played a leading role in coping with the infamous “kidnapping” of the NYU mathematics department's computer, in 1970.

The list of topics in which Lax made fundamental and long-lasting contributions is remarkable: scattering theory, solitons, shock waves, and even classical analysis, to name a few. His work has been honored many times, including the Abel Prize in 2005. The book concludes with an account of his most important mathematical contributions, made accessible without heavy prerequisites.

Reuben Hersh has written extensively on mathematics. His book with Philip Davis, The Mathematical Experience, won the National Book Award in science. Hersh is emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of New Mexico, USA.

Reuben Hersh, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA.

Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1. A prodigy and his family have a narrow escape
Chapter 2. Manhattan, NY, and Manhattan Project. An army private among the "Martians"
Chapter 3. Family life: Son, husband, father, grandfather
Chapter 4. Early career
Chapter 5. The famous CDC 6600 bomb-scare adventure
Chapter 6. Later career
Chapter 7. The queen of Norway
Entr'acte. Peter's stories
Chapter 8. Books
Chapter 9. Pure AND applied, not VERSUS applied
Chapter 10. Difference schemes. Shocks. Solitons. Scattering. Lax-Milgram. Polya's curve. Etc.
Epilogue
Appendices
Notes
References

Verlagsort	Providence
Sprache	englisch
Maße	178 x 254 mm
Gewicht	540 g
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Märchen / Sagen
Themenwelt	Mathematik / Informatik ► Mathematik ► Geschichte der Mathematik
ISBN-10	1-4704-1708-1 / 1470417081
ISBN-13	978-1-4704-1708-6 / 9781470417086
Zustand	Neuware