Rózsa Péter

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Rózsa Péter

Rózsa Péter [ ˈroːʒɒ ˈpeːtɛr ] (born Politzer ; born February 17, 1905 in Budapest , Austria-Hungary , † February 16, 1977 in Budapest) was a Hungarian mathematician . She made significant contributions to the theory of recursive functions .

Live and act

Rózsa Peter studied from 1922 at the University of Budapest , first chemistry , but then turned under the influence of lectures by Josef Kürschak and Leopold Fejér of mathematics. In 1927 she graduated and taught as a teacher. After hearing about Gödel's theorem, she developed her own approach with recursive functions, which she presented at the 1932 International Congress of Mathematicians in Zurich. In 1935 she received her doctorate “summa cum laude” in Budapest. In 1937 she became co-editor of the Journal of Symbolic Logic . As of 1939, as a Jew, she was banned from teaching and was also imprisoned for a short time in the Budapest ghetto.

During the Second World War , in which she lost her brother and many friends in the Holocaust , she wrote a. a. a popular science book ( Playing with Infinite ) translated into 14 languages. In 1945 she became a lecturer at the Pedagogical University in Budapest. In 1951 her book Recursive Functions was published , which had many editions and earned her the Kossuth Prize of the Hungarian state. In 1955, Péter simplified the first known non-primitive recursive function ( Ackermann function ) with the same properties as its current form, since then it has also been called Ackermann-Péter function. In the same year she became a professor at the University of Budapest, where she stayed until her retirement in 1976.

In 1970 she received the Hungarian State Prize in silver and in 1973 in gold. In 1953 she received the Mano Beke Prize of the János Bolyai Society. In 1973 she was admitted to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences .

Fonts

  • Recursive functions , Budapest 1951 (English Academic Press, 3rd edition 1967)
  • Playing with the infinite. Mathematics for outsiders , Teubner 1955, 1966 ( English Playing with Infinity. Mathematics for everyone , Dover 1976)
  • Mathematics is beautiful , Mathematical Intelligencer, Vol. 12, 1990, p. 58 (first in Mathematik in der Schule, Vol. 2, 1964, p. 81), with a biography of Leon Harkleroad, Edie Morris
  • Recursive functions in computer theory , Budapest 1976

literature

  • Edie Morris, Leon Harkleroad: Rozsa Peter: recursive function theory's founding mother, Mathematical Intelligencer 1990, No. 1, 59–64 (and from Rozsa: Mathematics is beautiful)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Péter, Rózsa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH February 17, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest
DATE OF DEATH February 16, 1977
Place of death Budapest