Wikipedia

Branko Grünbaum

Branko Grünbaum(Hebrew:ברנקו גרונבאום;2 October 1929 – 14 September 2018)[1]was a Croatian-bornmathematicianofJewishdescent[2]and a professoremeritusat theUniversity of WashingtoninSeattle.He received his Ph.D. in 1957 fromHebrew University of JerusaleminIsrael.[3]

Branko Grünbaum
Branko Grünbaum in 1975
Born2 October 1929
Osijek,Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Died14 September 2018(2018-09-14)(aged 88)
Seattle, Washington,U.S.
NationalityCroatian American
Alma materHebrew University of Jerusalem
AwardsLester R. Ford Award(1976)
Carl B. Allendoerfer Award(1978)
Leroy P. Steele Prize(2005)
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsUniversity of Washington
ThesisOn Some Properties of Minkowski Spaces(1957)
Doctoral advisorAryeh Dvoretzky
Doctoral students

Life

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Grünbaum was born inOsijek,then part of theKingdom of Yugoslavia,on 2 October 1929. His father wasJewishand his mother wasCatholic,so duringWorld War IIthe family survivedthe Holocaustby living at his Catholic grandmother's home. After the war, as a high school student, he met Zdenka Bienenstock, a Jew who had lived through the war hidden in a convent while the rest of her family were killed. Grünbaum became a student at theUniversity of Zagreb,but grew disenchanted with thecommunistideology of theSocialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,applied for emigration to Israel, and traveled with his family and Zdenka toHaifain 1949.[4]

In Israel, Grünbaum found a job inTel Aviv,but in 1950 returned to the study of mathematics,[4]at theHebrew University of Jerusalem.[1]He earned a master's degree in 1954 and in the same year married Zdenka, who continued as a master's student in chemistry. He served a tour of duty as anoperations researcherin the Israeli Air Force beginning in 1955, and he and Zdenka had the first of their two sons in 1956.[4]He completed his Ph.D. in 1957;[4][3]his dissertation concernedconvex geometryand was supervised byAryeh Dvoretzky.[3]

After finishing his military service in 1958, Grünbaum and his family came to the US so that Grünbaum could become a postdoctoral researcher at theInstitute for Advanced Study.He then became a visiting researcher at theUniversity of Washingtonin 1960. He agreed to return to Israel as a lecturer at the Hebrew University, but his plans were disrupted by the Israeli authorities determining that he was not a Jew (because his mother was not Jewish) and annulling his marriage; he and Zdenka remarried in Seattle before their return.[4]

Grünbaum remained affiliated with the Hebrew University until 1966, taking long research visits to the University of Washington and in 1965–1966 toMichigan State University.However, during the Michigan visit, learning of another case similar to their marriage annulment, he and Zdenka decided to stay in the US instead of returning to Israel, where Zdenka was still a doctoral student in chemistry. Grünbaum was given a full professorship at the University of Washington in 1966, and he remained there until retiring in 2001.[4]

Works

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Grünbaum authored over 200 papers, mostly indiscrete geometry,an area in which he is known for variousclassification theorems.He wrote on the theory ofabstract polyhedra.

His paper online arrangementsmay have inspired a paper byN. G. de Bruijnonquasiperiodic tilings(the most famous example of which is thePenrose tilingof the plane). This paper is also cited by the authors of a monograph on hyperplane arrangements as having inspired their research.

Grünbaum's rotationally symmetrical 5-set Venn diagram, 1975

Grünbaum also devised amulti-setgeneralisation ofVenn diagrams.He was an editor and a frequent contributor toGeombinatorics.

Grünbaum's classic monographConvex Polytopes,first published in 1967, became the main textbook on the subject. His monographTilings and patterns,coauthored withG. C. Shephard,helped to rejuvenate interest in this classic field, and has proved popular with nonmathematical audiences, as well as with mathematicians.

In 1976 Grünbaum won aLester R. Ford Awardfor his expository articleVenn diagrams and independent families of sets.[5]In 2004,Gil KalaiandVictor Kleeedited a special issue ofDiscrete and Computational Geometryin his honor, the "Grünbaum Festschrift". In 2005, Grünbaum was awarded theLeroy P. Steele Prizefor Mathematical Exposition from theAmerican Mathematical Society.He was aGuggenheim Fellow,aFellow of the AAASand in 2012 he became a fellow of theAmerican Mathematical Society.[6][7] Grünbaum supervised 19 Ph.D.s and currently has at least 200mathematical descendants.[3]

Books

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  • Grünbaum, Branko (2003) [1967], Kaibel, Volker;Klee, Victor;Ziegler, Günter M.(eds.),Convex Polytopes,Graduate Texts in Mathematics, vol. 221 (2nd ed.),Springer-Verlag,ISBN0-387-00424-6.[8]
  • Grünbaum, B.(1972),Arrangements and Spreads,Regional Conference Series in Mathematics, vol. 10, Providence, R.I.: American Mathematical Society,ISBN0-8218-1659-4.[9]
  • Grünbaum, Branko; Shephard, G. C. (1987),Tilings and Patterns,New York: W. H. Freeman,ISBN0-7167-1193-1.[10]
  • Grünbaum, Branko(2009),Configurations of Points and Lines,Graduate Studies in Mathematics,vol. 103,American Mathematical Society,ISBN978-0-8218-4308-6,MR2510707.[11]

as editor

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See also

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References

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  1. ^abChoi, Rose (September 18, 2018),Branko Grünbaum (1929—2018),University of Washington Mathematics Department
  2. ^Branko Grünbaum,Hrvatska enciklopedija LZMK.
  3. ^abcdBranko Grünbaumat theMathematics Genealogy Project
  4. ^abcdefWilliams, Gordon (2018),"Branko Grünbaum, Geometer",Ars Mathematica Contemporanea,15(1)
  5. ^Grünbaum, Branko (1975),"Venn diagrams and independent families of sets",Mathematics Magazine,48(1): 12–23,Bibcode:1975MathM..48...12G,doi:10.2307/2689288,JSTOR2689288
  6. ^List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society,retrieved 2013-01-19.
  7. ^Pircea, M., ed. (2011),The Best Writing on Mathematics 2010,Princeton University Press,ISBN9780691148410
  8. ^Reviews ofConvex Polytopes:
  9. ^Reviews ofArrangements and Spreads:
  10. ^Reviews ofTilings and patterns:
  11. ^Reviews ofConfigurations of Points and Lines:

Further reading

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