Michael Golomb

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Michael Golomb (born May 3, 1909 in Nuremberg , † April 9, 2008 in West Lafayette (Indiana) ) was an American mathematician and professor at Purdue University .

Life

Golomb studied at the University of Würzburg and received his doctorate in 1933 from the University of Berlin under Erhard Schmidt ( on the theory of nonlinear integral equations, systems of integral equations and general functional equations ). Adolf Hammerstein was one of his academic teachers . Since he was unable to practice his profession under the National Socialists as a Jew, he went to Yugoslavia in 1933 and to the USA in 1939. From 1940 to 1942 he was an instructor at Cornell University , where he had been a researcher in electrical engineering since 1939, and from 1943 to 1945 he was chief analyst at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia , where he worked as part of the war effort for the US Navy. For this he received the Distinguished Service Award. In 1945 he became a US citizen. From 1942 he was an instructor at Purdue University, from 1946 as an associate professor and from 1950 to 1978 (two years after his retirement) as a professor.

In 1984/85 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor at San Diego State University , 1975 visiting professor at Brown University and he was several times visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin (1956/57, 1958, 1967, 1970, 1978). From 1961 to 1970 he was a consultant at the Argonne National Laboratory .

He dealt with approximation theory ( spline interpolation ), differential and integral equations and applied mathematics . For a long time he supervised the problem of the week in his mathematics faculty and contributed solutions until his death. He was honored for his teaching by Purdue University with an entry on a plaque ( Purdue Book of Great Teachers in Academy Park).

Golomb was married to Dagmar Racic for 65 years (died 2004) and had two daughters.

At the International Mathematicians' Congress in Berlin in 1998, he was one of those portrayed at a special exhibition on the subject of emigration under the National Socialists.

He was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science . From 1973 to 1975 he was on the council of the American Mathematical Society .

Fonts

  • Elements of Ordinary Differential Equations , McGraw Hill 1950, 2nd edition with Merrill Shanks 1965
  • Lectures on Theoretical Mechanics , Purdue Lecture Notes in Mathematics, 1960
  • Lectures on the Theory of Approximation , Argonne National Laboratory 1962

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Golomb in the Mathematics Genealogy Project (English)Template: MathGenealogyProject / Maintenance / id used
  2. ↑ Biography in American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
personal data
SURNAME Golomb, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician of German origin
DATE OF BIRTH May 3, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH April 9, 2008
Place of death West Lafayette, Indiana