Hillel Furstenberg facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Harry Furstenberg
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | September 29, 1935 |
| Nationality | Israel American |
| Education | Yeshiva University (BA, MS) Princeton University (PhD) |
| Known for | Proof of Szemerédi's theorem IP set Evenly spaced integer topology Furstenberg–Sárközy theorem Furstenberg boundary Furstenberg's proof |
| Awards | Abel Prize Israel Prize Harvey Prize Wolf Prize |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Thesis | Prediction Theory (1958) |
| Doctoral advisor | Salomon Bochner |
| Doctoral students | Alexander Lubotzky Vitaly Bergelson Shahar Mozes Yuval Peres Tamar Ziegler |
Hillel "Harry" Furstenberg (born September 29, 1935) is a famous German-born American-Israeli mathematician. He used to be a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is known for using ideas from probability theory (the math of chance) and ergodic theory (the math of systems that change over time) to solve problems in other areas of math, like number theory (the study of numbers) and Lie groups (a type of mathematical structure). He has won many important awards, including the Abel Prize and the Wolf Prize in Mathematics.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Hillel Furstenberg was born in Nazi Germany in 1935. His family was Jewish, and they had to leave Germany in 1939 to escape the Holocaust. They moved to New York City in the United States.
He went to Yeshiva University and finished his bachelor's and master's degrees when he was just 20 years old in 1955. Even as a student, he wrote several important math papers. One of his most famous early papers was "On the infinitude of primes" (1955). In this paper, he showed a new way to prove that there are endlessly many prime numbers, using a math idea called topology.
Academic Journey
After college, Furstenberg went to Princeton University to get his PhD. He earned his doctorate in 1958 for his work on "Prediction Theory."
He started his teaching career at the University of Minnesota in 1961. In 1965, he moved to Israel to join the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He taught there until he retired in 2003.
Many of his students became successful mathematicians themselves. Some of them include Alexander Lubotzky, Yuval Peres, and Tamar Ziegler.
Amazing Math Discoveries
Furstenberg became well-known early in his career for his unique proof about prime numbers in 1955. He showed that there are infinitely many prime numbers using a method from topology, which is a branch of mathematics dealing with shapes and spaces.
He also did important work on how "random walks" (like a random path taken by a person) behave within certain math structures called groups. This led to a concept called the Furstenberg boundary, which is very important in the study of Lie groups.
In 1967, he introduced the idea of "disjointness" in ergodic theory. This idea is similar to how numbers can be "coprime" (meaning they share no common factors). This concept has been useful in many areas, including number theory and even in understanding things like fractals.
One of his biggest achievements was proving Szemerédi's theorem in 1977. This theorem says that if you have a group of numbers that are "dense" enough, you will always find patterns of numbers that are evenly spaced (called arithmetic progressions). Furstenberg used methods from ergodic theory to prove this. His work later helped other mathematicians, like Ben Green and Terence Tao, prove that even prime numbers can have these long, evenly spaced patterns.
Other important ideas named after him include the Furstenberg boundary and the Furstenberg compactification. He also contributed to the Furstenberg–Sárközy theorem in additive number theory, which deals with how numbers can be added together.
Family Life
In 1958, Hillel Furstenberg married Rochelle Cohen, who was a journalist. They have five children and sixteen grandchildren.
Awards and Honors
Hillel Furstenberg has received many prestigious awards for his contributions to mathematics:
- 1977 – He won the Rothschild Prize in Mathematics.
- 1993 – He received the Israel Prize, which is one of Israel's highest honors.
- 1993 – He was awarded the Harvey Prize from Technion.
- 2006/7 – He received the Wolf Prize in Mathematics, another very important international award.
- 2020 – He was awarded the Abel Prize along with Gregory Margulis. This prize is often called the "Nobel Prize of mathematics." They won it for their groundbreaking work using probability and dynamics in group theory, number theory, and combinatorics.
Selected Publications
- Furstenberg, Harry, Stationary processes and prediction theory, Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1960.
- Furstenberg, Harry, Recurrence in ergodic theory and combinatorial number theory, Princeton, N.J., Princeton Univ. Press, 1981.
See also
In Spanish: Hillel Furstenberg para niños
- List of Israel Prize recipients
