Abraham Seidenberg was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

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Early life

Seidenberg was born on June 2, 1916 in Washington D.C.. He graduated with a B.A. from the University of Maryland

University of Maryland, College Park

The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...

 in 1937. He completed his Ph.D. in mathematics from Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University

The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

 in 1943. His Ph.D. thesis was Valuation Ideals in Rings of Polynomials in Two Variables.

Academic career

Seidenberg became an instructor in mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

 in 1945. He reached the rank of full professor in 1958. He retired from Berkeley in 1987.

Contributions

Seidenberg was known for his research to commutative algebra, algebraic geometry, differential algebra, and the history of mathematics. He published Prime ideals and integral dependence written jointly with I S Cohen which greatly simplified the existing proofs of the going-up and going-down theorems of ideal theory. He also made important contributions to algebraic geometry. In 1950, he published a paper called The hyperplane sections of normal varieties which has proved fundamental in later advances. In 1968, he wrote Elements of the theory of algebraic curves, a book on algebraic geometry. He published several important papers.

Personal life

Seidenberg married Ebe Cagli. She was a writer. She and her family immigrated to the United States from Italy. The couple frequently visited Italy and Seidenberg held a visiting professorship at the University of Milan

University of Milan

The University of Milan is a higher education institution in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Europe, with about 62,801 students, a teaching and research staff of 2,455 and a non-teaching staff of 2,200....

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Death

Seidenberg died on May 3, 1988 in Milan, Italy. At the time of his death, he was in the midst of series of lectures at the University of Milan

University of Milan

The University of Milan is a higher education institution in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Europe, with about 62,801 students, a teaching and research staff of 2,455 and a non-teaching staff of 2,200....

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