Author: Carol Parikh
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 1483265722
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 293
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Book Description
The Unreal Life of Oscar Zariski records the life of Oscar Zariski that is based upon Carol Parikh's interviews with his family, colleagues, students, and his own memories from tape-recorded interviews conducted before his death in 1986. This book describes Oscar Zariski's work in mathematics that perpetually altered the foundations of algebraic geometry. The powerful tools he forged from the ideas of algebra allowed him to penetrate classical problems with a clarity and depth that brought a rigor to the way algebraic geometers carry out proofs. The strength of his work was matched by his forcefulness as a teacher, and the students he trained at Johns Hopkins and later at Harvard have made essential contributions to many areas of mathematics. This publication is beneficial to students and researchers interested in Oscar Zariski's life and work in mathematics.
Author: Carol Parikh
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 038709430X
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 203
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Book Description
Oscar Zariski’s work in mathematics permanently altered the foundations of algebraic geometry. The powerful tools he forged from the ideas of modern algebra allowed him to penetrate classical problems with an unaccustomed depth, and brought new rigor to the intuitive proofs of the Italian School. The students he trained at Hopkins, and later at Harvard, are among the foremost mathematicians of our time. While what he called his “real life” is recorded in almost a hundred books and papers, this story of his “unreal life” is based upon Parikh’s interviews with his family, colleagues, and students, and on his own memories from a series of tape-recorded interviews made a few years before his death in 1986. First published in 1991, The Unreal Life of Oscar Zariski was highly successful and widely praised, but has been out of print for many years. Springer is proud to make this book available again, introducing Oscar Zariski to a new generation of mathematicians.
Author: Steve Nadis
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674726553
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 281
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Book Description
In the twentieth century, American mathematicians began to make critical advances in a field previously dominated by Europeans. Harvard's mathematics department was at the center of these developments. A History in Sum is an inviting account of the pioneers who trailblazed a distinctly American tradition of mathematics--in algebraic geometry, complex analysis, and other esoteric subdisciplines that are rarely written about outside of journal articles or advanced textbooks. The heady mathematical concepts that emerged, and the men and women who shaped them, are described here in lively, accessible prose. The story begins in 1825, when a precocious sixteen-year-old freshman, Benjamin Peirce, arrived at the College. He would become the first American to produce original mathematics--an ambition frowned upon in an era when professors largely limited themselves to teaching. Peirce's successors transformed the math department into a world-class research center, attracting to the faculty such luminaries as George David Birkhoff. Influential figures soon flocked to Harvard, some overcoming great challenges to pursue their elected calling. A History in Sum elucidates the contributions of these extraordinary minds and makes clear why the history of the Harvard mathematics department is an essential part of the history of mathematics in America and beyond.
Author: Michael Friedman
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031057201
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
The book offers an extensive study on the convoluted history of the research of algebraic surfaces, focusing for the first time on one of its characterizing curves: the branch curve. Starting with separate beginnings during the 19th century with descriptive geometry as well as knot theory, the book focuses on the 20th century, covering the rise of the Italian school of algebraic geometry between the 1900s till the 1930s (with Federigo Enriques, Oscar Zariski and Beniamino Segre, among others), the decline of its classical approach during the 1940s and the 1950s (with Oscar Chisini and his students), and the emergence of new approaches with Boris Moishezon’s program of braid monodromy factorization. By focusing on how the research on one specific curve changed during the 20th century, the author provides insights concerning the dynamics of epistemic objects and configurations of mathematical research. It is in this sense that the book offers to take the branch curve as a cross-section through the history of algebraic geometry of the 20th century, considering this curve as an intersection of several research approaches and methods. Researchers in the history of science and of mathematics as well as mathematicians will certainly find this book interesting and appealing, contributing to the growing research on the history of algebraic geometry and its changing images.
Author: Philip J. Davis
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1439864071
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 368
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Book Description
In this charming memoir, a renowned mathematician and winner of the American Book Award traces his career in mathematics from early lessons in horse racing and the realities of life to his adventures on the lecture circuit. A thought-provoking mix of autobiography, history, and insights into the role of mathematics in everyday life, this highly ent
Author: Jeremy J. Gray
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
ISBN: 0821869043
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 346
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Book Description
Algebra, as a subdiscipline of mathematics, arguably has a history going back some 4000 years to ancient Mesopotamia. The history, however, of what is recognized today as high school algebra is much shorter, extending back to the sixteenth century, while the history of what practicing mathematicians call "modern algebra" is even shorter still. The present volume provides a glimpse into the complicated and often convoluted history of this latter conception of algebra by juxtaposing twelve episodes in the evolution of modern algebra from the early nineteenth-century work of Charles Babbage on functional equations to Alexandre Grothendieck's mid-twentieth-century metaphor of a ``rising sea'' in his categorical approach to algebraic geometry. In addition to considering the technical development of various aspects of algebraic thought, the historians of modern algebra whose work is united in this volume explore such themes as the changing aims and organization of the subject as well as the often complex lines of mathematical communication within and across national boundaries. Among the specific algebraic ideas considered are the concept of divisibility and the introduction of non-commutative algebras into the study of number theory and the emergence of algebraic geometry in the twentieth century. The resulting volume is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of modern mathematics in general and modern algebra in particular. It will be of particular interest to mathematicians and historians of mathematics.
Author: Karen Hunger Parshall
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691235244
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 640
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Book Description
"The 1920s witnessed the birth of a serious mathematical research community in America. Prior to this, mathematical research was dominated by scholars based in Europe-but World War I had made the importance of scientific and technological development clear to the American research community, resulting in the establishment of new scientific initiatives and infrastructure. Physics and chemistry were the beneficiaries of this renewed scientific focus, but the mathematical community also benefitted, and over time, began to flourish. Over the course of the next two decades, despite significant obstacles, this constellation of mathematical researchers, programs, and government infrastructure would become one of the strongest in the world. In this meticulously-researched book, Karen Parshall documents the uncertain, but ultimately successful, rise of American mathematics during this time. Drawing on research carried out in archives around the country and around the world, as well as on the secondary literature, she reveals how geopolitical circumstances shifted the course of international mathematics. She provides surveys of the mathematical research landscape in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, introduces the key players and institutions in mathematics at that time, and documents the effect of the Great Depression and the second world war on the international mathematical community. The result is a comprehensive account of the shift of mathematics' "center of gravity" to the American stage"--
Author:
Publisher: American Philosophical Society
ISBN: 9781422370179
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 154
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Book Description
Author: Arieh Zaritsky
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9813203765
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
Colleagues and former students of the late Professor Pritchard (aka Bob), an eminent UK geneticist, have gathered memories about his scientific and personal life. Bob's early, crucial contributions to decipher gene structure and mechanism of recombination in fungi, and those in bacterial physiology and the cell cycle, are briefly summarized. Bob was appointed as a young professor (34 years old) to open a new Department of Genetics at the University of Leicester, a department that thrived under his leadership to become internationally recognized for the quality of its scientific research and teaching. Pritchard's research studies on Microbial Genetics and Physiology and his intellectual leadership were pioneering and instrumental in the development of Molecular Biology and Bacterial Cell Biology.Recollections from the contributors about their interactions with Bob will be enjoyed by anyone interested in the history of Genetics in the UK, during the 1960s and 1970s. To future generations of investigators, they provide insights into how unbiased honesty, humbleness, incisiveness, generosity and friendship are cornerstones for the advancement of human knowledge.The book has been compiled from articles by 26 colleagues, former students and friends of Bob Pritchard, and of his surviving daughter, each from his/her personal viewpoint. They include 17 Professors, 2 Readers, 4 Doctors (all PhD's), 2 politicians and an Attorney, and are citizens of 6 countries (UK-14, USA-5, FR-3, ES-2, IL-1, AU-1). Each chapter has been written independently of the others hence marked differences in length (between 1-10 pp) and style. The 44 photographs were gathered from their personal collections.
Author: Piotr Pragacz
Publisher: European Mathematical Society
ISBN: 9783037191149
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 520
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Book Description
The articles in this volume are the outcome of the Impanga Conference on Algebraic Geometry in 2010 at the Banach Center in Bedlewo. The following spectrum of topics is covered: K3 surfaces and Enriques surfaces Prym varieties and their moduli invariants of singularities in birational geometry differential forms on singular spaces Minimal Model Program linear systems toric varieties Seshadri and packing constants equivariant cohomology Thom polynomials arithmetic questions The main purpose of the volume is to give comprehensive introductions to the above topics, starting from an elementary level and ending with a discussion of current research. The first four topics are represented by the notes from the mini courses held during the conference. In the articles, the reader will find classical results and methods, as well as modern ones. This book is addressed to researchers and graduate students in algebraic geometry, singularity theory, and algebraic topology. Most of the material in this volume has not yet appeared in book form.
