Peter Lax
Encyclopedia
Peter David Lax is a mathematician
working in the areas of pure and applied mathematics
. He has made important contributions to integrable system
s, fluid dynamics
and shock wave
s, soliton
ic physics, hyperbolic conservation laws, and mathematical and scientific computing, among other fields. Lax is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher
.
, Hungary
in Jewish family, and moved with his parents (Klara Kornfield and Henry Lax, both were medical doctors) to New York City
in 1941, where he studied at Stuyvesant High School
. In 1948 he married Anneli Cahn, who also was on her way to becoming a career mathematician.
He is an alumnus of New York University
, where he received both his bachelor's degree
in 1947 with Phi Beta Kappa honors and his PhD
in 1949 with thesis advisor Kurt O. Friedrichs
.
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.
Lax holds a faculty position in the Department of Mathematics, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
, New York University
.
He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
and 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.
took a CDC 6600
computer hostage at NYU's Courant Institute which he had been instrumental in acquiring. Some of the students present, possibly members of the Weathermen
, threatened to destroy the computer with incendiary devices, but Lax managed to disable the devices and save the machine. The incident played a role in the resignation of Juergen Moser, director of the Courant Institute in 1967–1970.
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....
working in the areas of pure and applied mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
. He has made important contributions to integrable system
Integrable system
In mathematics and physics, there are various distinct notions that are referred to under the name of integrable systems.In the general theory of differential systems, there is Frobenius integrability, which refers to overdetermined systems. In the classical theory of Hamiltonian dynamical...
s, fluid dynamics
Fluid dynamics
In physics, fluid dynamics is a sub-discipline of fluid mechanics that deals with fluid flow—the natural science of fluids in motion. It has several subdisciplines itself, including aerodynamics and hydrodynamics...
and shock wave
Shock wave
A shock wave is a type of propagating disturbance. Like an ordinary wave, it carries energy and can propagate through a medium or in some cases in the absence of a material medium, through a field such as the electromagnetic field...
s, soliton
Soliton
In mathematics and physics, a soliton is a self-reinforcing solitary wave that maintains its shape while it travels at constant speed. Solitons are caused by a cancellation of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the medium...
ic physics, hyperbolic conservation laws, and mathematical and scientific computing, among other fields. Lax is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher
ISI highly cited researcher
ISI Highly Cited is a database of "highly cited researchers"—scientific researchers whose publications are most often cited in academic journals over the past decade, published by the Institute for Scientific Information...
.
Life and education
Lax was born in BudapestBudapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, Hungary
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...
in Jewish family, and moved with his parents (Klara Kornfield and Henry Lax, both were medical doctors) to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1941, where he studied at Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School , commonly referred to as Stuy , is a New York City public high school that specializes in mathematics and science. The school opened in 1904 on Manhattan's East Side and moved to a new building in Battery Park City in 1992. Stuyvesant is noted for its strong academic...
. In 1948 he married Anneli Cahn, who also was on her way to becoming a career mathematician.
He is an alumnus of New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, where he received both his bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
in 1947 with Phi Beta Kappa honors and his PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in 1949 with thesis advisor Kurt O. Friedrichs
Kurt O. Friedrichs
Kurt Otto Friedrichs was a noted German American mathematician. He was the co-founder of the Courant Institute at New York University and recipient of the National Medal of Science.-Biography:...
.
Work
In a 1958 paper Lax stated a conjecture about matrixMatrix (mathematics)
In mathematics, a matrix is a rectangular array of numbers, symbols, or expressions. The individual items in a matrix are called its elements or entries. An example of a matrix with six elements isMatrices of the same size can be added or subtracted element by element...
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.
Lax holds a faculty position in the Department of Mathematics, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences is an independent division of New York University under the Faculty of Arts & Science that serves as a center for research and advanced training in computer science and mathematics...
, New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
.
He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway.-History:The University of Oslo was established in 1811. The idea of a learned society in Christiania surfaced for the first time in 1841. The city of Throndhjem had no university, but had a learned...
and the National Academy of Sciences, USA. He was awarded the National Medal of Science
National Medal of Science
The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and...
in 1986, the Wolf Prize in 1987 and the Abel Prize
Abel Prize
The Abel Prize is an international prize presented annually by the King of Norway to one or more outstanding mathematicians. The prize is named after Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel . It has often been described as the "mathematician's Nobel prize" and is among the most prestigious...
in 2005.
The CDC 6600 Incident
In 1970, the Transcendental StudentsTranscendental Students
Transcendental Students was a student activist and anarchist group created in 1969 at NYU in New York City. Its motto and philiosophy was "insurrection through happiness"....
took a CDC 6600
CDC 6600
The CDC 6600 was a mainframe computer from Control Data Corporation, first delivered in 1964. It is generally considered to be the first successful supercomputer, outperforming its fastest predecessor, IBM 7030 Stretch, by about three times...
computer hostage at NYU's Courant Institute which he had been instrumental in acquiring. Some of the students present, possibly members of the Weathermen
Weather Underground (organization)
Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization , was an American radical left organization. It originated in 1969 as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society composed for the most part of the national office leadership of SDS and their...
, threatened to destroy the computer with incendiary devices, but Lax managed to disable the devices and save the machine. The incident played a role in the resignation of Juergen Moser, director of the Courant Institute in 1967–1970.
Books
- Functional Analysis, Wiley-Interscience, New York (2002).
- Linear Algebra and Its Applications, 2nd ed., Wiley-InterscienceJohn Wiley & SonsJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc., also referred to as Wiley, is a global publishing company that specializes in academic publishing and markets its products to professionals and consumers, students and instructors in higher education, and researchers and practitioners in scientific, technical, medical, and...
, New York (2007). - Hyperbolic Partial Differential Equations, American Mathematical Society/Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (2006).
- Scattering Theory, with R. S. Phillips, Academic PressAcademic PressAcademic Press is an academic book publisher. Originally independent, it was acquired by Harcourt, Brace & World in 1969. Reed Elsevier bought Harcourt in 2000, and Academic Press is now an imprint of Elsevier....
(1989). - Hyperbolic Systems of Conservation Laws and the Mathematical Theory of Shock Waves, Society for Industrial Mathematics (1987).
- Decay of Solutions of Systems of Nonlinear Hyperbolic Conservation Laws, with J. GlimmJames GlimmJames Gilbert Glimm is an American mathematical physicist, and Professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.James Glimm was born in Peoria, Illinois, USA on 24 March 1934.- Career :...
, American Mathematical Society (1970). - Recent Mathematical Methods in Nonlinear Wave Propagation, with G. Boillat, C. M. Dafermos, T.-P. Liu, and T. Ruggeri, Springer (1996).
- Scattering Theory for Automorphic Functions with R. S. Phillips, Princeton Univ. Press (2001).
- Calculus with Applications and Computing, with S. Burnstein and A. Lax, Springer-Verlag, New York (1979).
- Recent Advances in Partial Differential Equations
- Mathematical Aspects of Production and Distribution of Energy
- Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations in Applied Science}}}}
See also
- Lax pairLax pairIn mathematics, in the theory of integrable systems, a Lax pair is a pair of time-dependent matrices or operators that describe the corresponding differential equations. They were introduced by Peter Lax to discuss solitons in continuous media...
- Lax–Milgram theorem
- Lax–Friedrichs methodLax–Friedrichs methodThe Lax–Friedrichs method, named after Peter Lax and Kurt O. Friedrichs, is a numerical method for the solution of hyperbolic partial differential equations based on finite differences...
- Lax–Wendroff methodLax–Wendroff methodThe Lax–Wendroff method, named after Peter Lax and Burton Wendroff, is a numerical method for the solution of hyperbolic partial differential equations, based on finite differences...
- Lax–Richtmyer theoremLax equivalence theoremIn numerical analysis, the Lax equivalence theorem is the fundamental theorem in the analysis of finite difference methods for the numerical solution of partial differential equations...
, also called Lax equivalence theorem - Babuška–Lax–Milgram theorem
- undercompressive shock waveUndercompressive shock waveAn undercompressive shock wave is a shock wave that does not fulfill the Peter Lax conditions.-Details:Ordinary shock waves are compressive, that is, they fulfill the Peter Lax conditions: the characteristic speed behind the shock is greater than the speed of the shock, which is greater than the...
External links
- Elements from his contributions to mathematics. Popularised presentation of Peter Lax by Helge HoldenHelge HoldenHelge Holden is a Norwegian mathematician working in the field of Differential equations and Mathematical physics.He took the dr.philos. degree at the University of Oslo in 1985. The title of his dissertation with Raphael Høegh-Krohn was Point Interactions and the Short-Range Expansion. A Solvable...
, published on the Abel Prize website. - Abel Prize press release and biography
- NY Times Interview 3 29 05