Jacob Wolfowitz
Jacob Wolfowitz (born March 19, 1910 in Warsaw , † July 16, 1981 in Tampa ) was a statistician and information theorist who emigrated from Poland to the United States . His son is the American politician Paul Wolfowitz .
Life
Wolfowitz emigrated to the United States with his Jewish parents in 1920. He studied mathematics there and became a math teacher at various high schools in the mid-1930s . He held this position until 1942, when he received his doctorate in mathematics from New York University . In 1938 he met Abraham Wald , with whom he studied numerous problems of probability and statistics until Wald's death in 1950 . In 1951, Wolfowitz became a math professor at Cornell University , where he remained until 1970. He then taught at the University of South Florida until he died of a heart attack.
His book Coding Theorems of Information Theory is a classic in information theory.
In 1970 he was invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Nice (Asymptotically efficient tests and estimators). Also in 1970 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , in 1974 to the National Academy of Sciences .
Fonts
- J. Kiefer (ed.): Jacob Wolfowitz Selected Papers . Springer-Verlag, 1980, ISBN 0-387-90463-8
- Coding Theorems of Information Theory (series of results in mathematics and their border areas ). Springer-Verlag, New York, 1978, ISBN 0-387-08548-3
Web links
- Shelemyahu Zacks: Obituary (English)
- John J. O'Connor, Edmund F. Robertson : Jacob Wolfowitz. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wolfowitz, Jacob |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish information theorist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 19, 1910 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Poland |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 16, 1981 |
| Place of death | Tampa , Florida |