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Peter Lax
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Peter David Lax (born May 1, 1926, Budapest, Hungary) is a mathematician working in the areas of pure and applied mathematics. He has made important contributions to integrable systems, fluid dynamics and shock waves, solitonic physics, hyperbolic conservation laws, and mathematical and scientific computing, among other fields.
In a 1958 paper Lax stated a conjecture about matrix representations for third order hyperbolic polynomials which remained unproven for over four decades. Interest in the "Lax conjecture" grew as mathematicians working in several different areas recognized the importance of its implications in their field, until it was finally proven to be true in 2003 [1].
Lax was born in Budapest, Hungary, and moved with his parents (Klara Kornfield and Henry Lax) to New York City in 1941, where he studied at Stuyvesant High School.[2] In 1948 he married Anneli Cahn, who also was on her way to becoming a career mathematician.
Lax holds a faculty position in the Department of Mathematics, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University.
He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1986, the Wolf Prize in 1987 and the Abel Prize in 2005.
He is an alumnus of New York University, where he received both his bachelor's degree in 1947 and his Ph.D in 1949 with thesis advisor Kurt O. Friedrichs.
Contents |
- Functional Analysis
- Linear Algebra
- Scattering Theory for Automorphic Functions
- Calculus with Applications and Computing
- Hyperbolic Systems of Conservation Laws and the Mathematical Theory of Shock Waves
- Recent Advances in Partial Differential Equations
- Mathematical Aspects of Production and Distribution of Energy
- Scattering Theory
- Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations in Applied Science
- Peter Lax at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- O'Connor, John J; Edmund F. Robertson "Peter Lax". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
- Elements from his contributions to mathematics. Popularised presentation of Peter Lax by Helge Holden, published on the Abel Prize website.
- Abel Prize press release and biography
- NY Times Interview 3 29 05
- ^ A.S. Lewis; P.A. Parrilo, M.V. Ramana (2003-04-18). "The Lax conjecture is true". Optimization Online. Retrieved on 2007-10-31.
- ^ Dreifus, Claudia. "A Conversation with Peter Lax - From Budapest to Los Alamos, a Life in Mathematics", New York Times, 2005-03-29. Retrieved on 2007-10-31.
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Jean-Pierre Serre (2003) • Michael Atiyah / Isadore Singer (2004) • Peter Lax (2005) • Lennart Carleson (2006) • S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan (2007) |
Categories: 1926 births | 20th century mathematicians | Abel Prize laureates | American mathematicians | Hungarian immigrants to the United States | Hungarian Jews | Hungarian mathematicians | Living people | Members and associates of the United States National Academy of Sciences | National Medal of Science laureates | New York University alumni | New York University faculty | Numerical analysts | Stuyvesant High School alumni | Wolf Prize in Mathematics laureates | Members of the French Academy of Sciences