Abraham Robinson: The Creation of Nonstandard Analysis, a Personal and Mathematical Odyssey - Brossura

Dauben, Joseph W.

Brossura

ISBN 10: 069105911X ISBN 13: 9780691059112

Casa editrice: Princeton Univ Pr, 1998

Riassunto

One of the most prominent mathematicians of the twentieth century, Abraham Robinson discovered and developed nonstandard analysis, a rigorous theory of infinitesimals that he used to unite mathematical logic with the larger body of historic and modern mathematics. In this first biography of Robinson, Joseph Dauben reveals the mathematician's personal life to have been a dramatic one: developing his talents in spite of war and ethnic repression, Robinson personally confronted some of the worst political troubles of our times. With the skill and expertise familiar to readers of Dauben's earlier works, the book combines an explanation of Robinson's revolutionary achievements in pure and applied mathematics with a description of his odyssey from Hitler's Germany to the United States via conflict-ridden Palestine and wartime Europe.Robinson was born in Prussia in 1918. As a boy, he fled with his mother and brother Saul to Palestine. A decade later he narrowly escaped from Paris as the Germans invaded France. Having spent the rest of World War II in England, at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough, he began his teaching career at the Royal College of Aeronautics. Subsequently he moved to universities in Canada, Israel, and finally the United States. A joint appointment in mathematics and philosophy at UCLA led to a position at Yale University, where Robinson served as Sterling Professor of Mathematics until his untimely death at the age of fifty-five.

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Recensione

Joseph Warren Dauben, Winner of the 2012 Albert Leon Whiteman Memorial Prize, American Mathematical Society
"This masterpiece of scientific biography presents the eventful life and the pioneering work of a remarkable figure of twentieth-century pure and applied mathematics as well as symbolic logic. [A] well-written and most carefully researched text [that is] enlightening and delightful to read. Dauben alternates two narratives, biography and the progression of science, not omitting daily and academic life, and their background in general and cultural history, of the stations of Robinson's odyssey.... The book is bound to become an indispensable source for future historical work."--Detlef Laugwitz, Mathematical Reviews

"Robinson, who expressed a certain preference for 'glamour,' led a life that is interesting for its own sake. Dauben's account of it is engrossingly intimate."--Albert C. Lewis, Isis

Contenuti

	Foreword
	Acknowledgments
Ch. 1	Family and Childhood: Germany 1918-1933	3
Ch. 2	Life in Palestine: 1933-1939	33
Ch. 3	Robinson in Paris: January-June 1940	59
Ch. 4	Robinson and the War: London 1940-1946	91
Ch. 5	Robinson after the War: London 1946-1951	131
Ch. 6	The University of Toronto: 1951-1957	185
Ch. 7	The Hebrew University: Jerusalem 1957-1962	243
Ch. 8	UCLA and Nonstandard Analysis: 1962-1967	305
Ch. 9	Robinson Joins the Ivy League: Yale University 1967-1974	403
	Epilogue. Abraham Robinson: The Man and His Mathematics	491
	Bibliography	495
	Index	537

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Princeton Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 1998
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 069105911X
• ISBN 13: 9780691059112
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 559
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile