Albert William Tucker

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Albert William Tucker (born November 28, 1905 in Oshawa , Ontario , Canada , † January 25, 1995 in Highstown , New Jersey ) was a Canadian-born American mathematician who made important contributions to topology , game theory and linear programming .

Life

He studied mathematics at the University of Toronto (Bachelor's degree in 1928, Master's degree in 1929) and Princeton University , where he obtained his doctorate in 1932 under Solomon Lefschetz (An abstract approach to manifolds). From 1932 to 1933 he was a National Research Fellow at Harvard University and at the University of Chicago . In 1933 he returned to Princeton University, where he became an assistant professor in 1934 and an associate professor in 1938. During World War II he taught in the special university programs for the training of members of the army and navy and was head of a research group at Princeton on ballistics and fire control systems (Fire Control Research Group). In 1946 he received a full professor at Princeton. From 1953 he was Baldwin Dod Professor there and was also chairman of the mathematics faculty at Princeton in the same year. In 1974 he became professor emeritus. He was visiting professor at Stanford University (1949–1950), at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cornell University , Dartmouth College , Haverford College , the Rockefeller Institute and as a Fulbright Lecturer in Australia (1956) and Europe (and 1959 at the OECD ).

At Princeton University he founded a program for linear programming and game theory, which ran until 1972 and was the largest such project in the United States, along with the Rand Corporation . In 1950 he initiated research on the prisoner's dilemma , one of the most famous paradoxes in game theory . He suggested the paradox as an example of a non-zero-sum game when giving a lecture to psychologists at Stanford University on game theory.

At the university he also founded the Annals of Mathematical Studies series of publications by Princeton University Press, in which he edited and co-authored several volumes on game theory.

Tucker also campaigned for the improvement of math teaching in high schools and was on several related national committees in the United States.

Tucker was an Honorary Doctor of Dartmouth College (1961). In 1968 he received the Distinguished Service Award of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), of which he was also temporarily president, and in 1980 the von Neumann Theory Prize of the Operations Research Society of America. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (since 1987) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), of which he was temporarily vice-president. He was also on the Council of the American Mathematical Society . In 1980 he received the John von Neumann Theory Prize .

His PhD students include Marvin Minsky (with a thesis on neural networks), David Gale and John Nash , the latter with a thesis on game theory in 1950, which later won him the Nobel Prize.

Tucker was married and had three children.

Fonts

  • with Evar Nering: Linear Programs and related problems, Academic Press 1993
  • with HW Kuhn (editor): Contributions to the theory of games, Annals of Mathematical Studies 1950
  • with HW Kuhn (editor): Linear inequalities and related systems, Annals of Mathematical Studies 1956
  • with Allan Gewirtz, Harry Sitomer: Constructive linear algebra, Englewood Cliffs 1974

See also

literature

  • Donald J. Albers, GL Alexanderson Mathematical People - Profiles and Interviews , Birkhäuser 1985

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Albert W. Tucker , informs.org
personal data
SURNAME Tucker, Albert William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH November 28, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Oshawa , Ontario , Canada
DATE OF DEATH January 25, 1995
Place of death Highstown , New Jersey , United States