Tobias Dantzig was a Baltic German

Baltic German

The Baltic Germans were mostly ethnically German inhabitants of the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, which today form the countries of Estonia and Latvia. The Baltic German population never made up more than 10% of the total. They formed the social, commercial, political and cultural élite in...

 Russian American

Russian American

Russian Americans are primarily Americans who traces their ancestry to Russia. The definition can be applied to recent Russian immigrants to the United States, as well as to settlers of 19th century Russian settlements in northwestern America which includes today's California, Alaska and...

 mathematician, the father of George Dantzig

George Dantzig

George Bernard Dantzig was an American mathematical scientist who made important contributions to operations research, computer science, economics, and statistics....

, and the author of NUMBER: The Language of Science (A Critical Survey Written for the Cultured non Mathematician) (1930) and Aspects of Science (New York, Macmillan, 1937).

Born in Latvia

Latvia

Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

, Dantzig studied mathematics with Henri Poincaré

Henri Poincaré

Jules Henri Poincaré was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and a philosopher of science...

 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. Tobias married a fellow Sorbonne University student, Anja Ourisson, and the couple emigrated to the United States

United States

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

 in 1910. Working for a time as a lumberjack

Lumberjack

A lumberjack is a worker in the logging industry who performs the initial harvesting and transport of trees for ultimate processing into forest products. The term usually refers to a bygone era when hand tools were used in harvesting trees principally from virgin forest...

 in Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

, Dantzig received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Indiana University

Indiana University Bloomington

Indiana University Bloomington is a public research university located in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. IU Bloomington is the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. Being the flagship campus, IU Bloomington is often referred to simply as IU or Indiana...

 in 1917. He taught at Johns Hopkins

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...

, Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, and 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...

. Dantzig died in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 in 1956. He was the father of George Dantzig

George Dantzig

George Bernard Dantzig was an American mathematical scientist who made important contributions to operations research, computer science, economics, and statistics....

, creator of linear programming

Linear programming

Linear programming is a mathematical method for determining a way to achieve the best outcome in a given mathematical model for some list of requirements represented as linear relationships...

.

Memorable Quotation:

"The harmony of the universe knows only one musical form - the legato

Legato

In musical notation the Italian word legato indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly and connected. That is, in transitioning from note to note, there should be no intervening silence...

; while the symphony of number knows only its opposite - the staccato

Staccato

Staccato is a form of musical articulation. In modern notation it signifies a note of shortened duration and separated from the note that may follow by silence...

. All attempts to reconcile this discrepancy are based on the hope that an accelerated staccato may appear to our senses as a legato."

External links

• Tobias Dantzig by Informit.com