Herbert Busemann(12 May 1905 – 3 February 1994) was aGerman-Americanmathematicianspecializing inconvexanddifferential geometry.He is the author ofBusemann's theoreminEuclidean geometryandgeometric tomography.He was a member of theRoyal Danish Academyand a winner of theLobachevsky Medal(1985), the first American mathematician to receive it.[1]He was also aFulbright scholarinNew Zealandin 1952.[2]
Biography
editHerbert Busemann was born inBerlinto a well-to-do family. His father, Alfred Busemann, was a director ofKrupp,where Busemann also worked for several years. He studied atUniversity of Munich,Paris,andRome.He defended his dissertation inUniversity of Göttingenin 1931, where his advisor wasRichard Courant.He remained inGöttingenas an assistant until 1933, when he escapedNazi GermanytoCopenhagen(he had aJewish grandfather).[3]He worked at theUniversity of Copenhagenuntil 1936, when he left to theUnited States.There, he got married in 1939 and naturalized in 1943. He had temporary positions at theInstitute for Advanced Study,Johns Hopkins University,Illinois Institute of Technology,Smith College,and eventually became a professor in 1947 atUniversity of Southern California.[4]He advanced to adistinguished professorin 1964, and continued working at USC until his retirement in 1970. Over the course of his work at USC, he supervised over 10 Ph.D. students.
He is the author of six monographs, two of which were translated into Russian. He receivedLobachevsky Medalin 1985 for his bookThe geometry of geodesics.[5]
Busemann was also an active mathematical citizen. At different times, he was the president of theCaliforniachapter ofMathematical Association of America,and a member of the council of theAmerican Mathematical Society.[6]
Busemann was also an accomplished linguist; he was able to read and speak inFrench,German,Spanish,Italian,Russian,andDanish.He could also readArabic,Latin,GreekandSwedish.[7]He translated a number of papers and monograph, most notably fromRussian,a rare language at the time. He was also an accomplished artist and had several public exhibitions of hisHard-edge paintings].[8]He died inSanta Ynez, Californiaon February 3, 1994, at the age of 88.[9]
Busemann's Selected papers are now available in two volumes (908 and 842 pages), with introductory biographical material and commentaries on his work, and published by edited by Athanase Papadopoulos, Springer Verlag, 2018.
Books
edit- Herbert Busemann, Selected Works, (Athanase Papadopoulos, ed.) Volume I,ISBN978-3-319-64294-9,XXXII, 908 p., Springer International Publishing, 2018.
- Herbert Busemann, Selected Works, (Athanase Papadopoulos, ed.) Volume II,ISBN978-3-319-65623-6,XXXV, 842 p., Springer International Publishing, 2018.
- Introduction to algebraic manifolds, Princeton University Press, 1939.
- withPaul J. Kelly:Projective geometry and projective metrics, Academic Press, 1953,Dover 2006.
- Convex Surfaces, Interscience 1958,Dover, 2008.
- Geometry of Geodesics, Academic Press 1955,[10]Dover, 2005.
- Metric methods in Finsler spaces and in the foundations of geometry,Princeton University Press, Oxford University Press, 1942.[11]
- with Bhalchandra Phadke: Spaces with distinguished geodesics, Dekker, 1987.
- Recent synthetic differential geometry,Springer 1970.
See also
editNotes
edit- ^LA Times, 1985.
- ^LA Times, 1952.
- ^Gardner, 1994.
- ^LA Times, 1994.
- ^В. М. Бухштабер, С. П. Новиков,История премии им. Н. И. Лобачевского (к 100-летию первого присуждения в 1897 г.)
- ^LA Times, 1952.
- ^LA Times, 1952.
- ^LA Times, 1976.
- ^LA Times, 1994.
- ^Boothby, William M. (1957)."Review: Herbert Busemann,The geometry of geodesics".Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.63(2): 151–153.doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1957-10112-8.
- ^Ficken, F. A. (1944)."Review:Metric methods in Finsler spaces and in the foundations of geometry,by H. Busemann "(PDF).Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.50(2): 321–325.doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1944-08118-4.
References
edit- Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze,Mathematicians Fleeing from Nazi Germany: Individual Fates and Global Impact,p. 107, Princeton University Press, 2009.
- Richard J. Gardner,Geometric tomography,p. 309, Cambridge University Press, 1994.
- "Professor as SC plans study in New Zealand",Los Angeles Times,6 January 1952, p. 22.
- "Professors write Geometry Textbook",Los Angeles Times10 August 1953, p. 1.
- "Herbert Busemann, Oil Paintings",Los Angeles Times,18 January 1976, p. M59.
- Lee Dembart, "An Unsung Geometer Keeps to His Own Plane",Los Angeles Times,14 July 1985, p. H3.
- "Herbert Busemann; USC Emeritus Professor of Mathematics",Los Angeles Times,19 March 1994, p. 24.
- Athanase Papadopoulos, "Herbert Busemann",Notices of the AMS,vol. 65, No. 3, March 2018, p. 936-938.