Melvyn B. Nathanson

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Melvyn Bernard Nathanson

| image = Mel2004Photo_(2).tif

| caption =

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1944|10|10}}

| birth_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

| nationality = American

| field = Mathematics

| work_institutions = Lehman College and
CUNY Graduate Center

| alma_mater = University of Pennsylvania
University of Rochester

| thesis_title = Difference Operators on Sequences Over Groups

| thesis_year = 1972

| doctoral_advisor = Sanford L. Segal

| doctoral_students =

| known_for = Additive number theory

| prizes = Fellow of the American Mathematical Society

}}

Melvyn Bernard Nathanson (born October 10, 1944, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American mathematician, specializing in number theory, and a Professor of Mathematics at Lehman College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York).{{cite web |url=http://theoryofnumbers.com |title=Melvyn B. Nathanson at Lehman College |access-date=2014-08-20}} His principal work is in additive and combinatorial number theory. He is the author of over 200 research papers in mathematics,{{cite web |url=http://comet.lehman.cuny.edu/nathanson/MBNpapers.pdf |title=List of published papers by Melvyn B. Nathanson |access-date=2014-08-20}} and author or editor of 27 books.{{cite web |url=http://comet.lehman.cuny.edu/nathanson/MBNbooks.pdf |title=List of published books by Melvyn B. Nathanson |access-date=2014-08-20}}

Education

Nathanson graduated from Central High School in 1961 and from the University of Pennsylvania in 1965 with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy.{{cite web |url=http://www.ias.edu/people/cos/users/1346 |title=Melvyn B. Nathanson at the Institute for Advanced Study |access-date=2014-08-20}} He was a graduate student in biophysics at Harvard University in 1965–66, then moved to the University of Rochester, where he received a PhD in mathematics in 1972.{{MathGenealogy |id=5981}} During the academic year 1969–70 he was a visiting research student in the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics at the University of Cambridge.{{cite book|editor1-last=Chudnovsky|editor1-first=David|editor2-last=Chudnovsky|editor2-first=Gregory|title=Additive Number Theory: Festschrift In Honor of the Sixtieth Birthday of Melvyn B. Nathanson|url=https://www.springer.com/mathematics/numbers/book/978-0-387-37029-3 |date=2010|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-0-387-37029-3}}

Professional life

Nathanson was on the faculty of Southern Illinois University, Carbondale from 1971 to 1981. He was Professor of Mathematics and Dean of the Graduate School of Rutgers-Newark from 1981 to 1986, and Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Lehman College at the City University of New York from 1986 to 1991. He has been Professor of Mathematics at Lehman College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York since 1986. He held visiting positions at Harvard University in 1977–78, Rockefeller University in 1981–83, Tel Aviv University in Spring, 2001, and Princeton University in Fall, 2008.

In 1974–75 Nathanson was Assistant to André Weil in the School of Mathematics of the Institute for Advanced Study. Nathanson subsequently spent the academic years 1990–91 and 1999–2000, and the Fall, 2007, term at the Institute.{{cite web |url=http://www.ias.edu/people/cos/users/melvyn |title=Melvyn B. Nathanson at the Institute for Advanced Study |access-date=2014-08-20}} He served as President of the Association of Members of the Institute for Advanced Study (AMIAS) from 1998 to 2012.{{cite web |url=http://www.ias.edu/people/amias/board |title=Board of Trustees, Institute for Advanced Study |access-date=2014-08-20}}

In 1972–73 Nathanson became the first American mathematician to receive an International Research & Exchanges Board fellowship to spend a year in the former USSR, where he worked with I. M. Gel'fand at Moscow State University.{{cite journal |first=Melvyn B. |last=Nathanson |year=2014 |title=An American Mathematician in Moscow, or How I Destroyed the Soviet Union |url=https://www.ams.org/notices/201402/rnoti-p186.pdf |journal=Notices of the American Mathematical Society |volume=61 |issue=2 |pages=186–189 |access-date=2014-08-20 |doi=10.1090/noti1076|arxiv=1408.3872 |s2cid=119147511 }} In 1977 the National Academy of Sciences selected him to spend another year in Moscow on its exchange agreement with the USSR Academy of Sciences. An international brouhaha ensued when the Soviet government refused to allow him to re-enter the country.{{cite news |last=Anderson |first=Raymond H. |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1977/10/03/issue.html |title=U.S. Scientist Denied a Soviet Visa After Acceptance in Study Program |newspaper=The New York Times |date=October 3, 1977 |access-date=2014-08-20}} He spent the academic year 1977–78 in the mathematics department at Harvard University, where he also worked in the Program for Science and International Affairs, and contributed to the book Nuclear Nonproliferation: The Spent Fuel Problem.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YZ7pAgAAQBAJ |title=Nuclear Nonproliferation: The Spent Fuel Problem |series=Pergamon policy studies on energy and environment |author=Harvard University Nuclear Nonproliferation Study Group |publisher=Pergamon Press |date=1979 |isbn=978-0-080-23887-6}}

Nathanson is the author/editor/translator of several books and articles on Soviet art and politics,{{cite news |last=Hechinger |first=Fred |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/29/science/about-education.html?emc=eta1 |title=About Education |newspaper=The New York Times |date=December 29, 1981 |access-date=2014-08-20}} including Komar/Melamid: Two Soviet Dissident Artists,{{cite book|title=Komar/Melamid: Two Soviet Dissident Artists |editor-first=Melvyn B. |editor-last=Nathanson |publisher=Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale|year=1979|isbn=978-0-809-30887-3|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LPPVAAAAMAAJ}} and Grigori Freiman, It Seems I am a Jew: A Samizdat Essay on Anti-Semitism in Soviet Mathematics,{{cite book|title=It Seems I am a Jew: A Samizdat Essay on Anti-Semitism in Soviet Mathematics|first=Grigori|last= Freiman|publisher=Translated from the Russian and with an introduction by Melvyn B. Nathanson and appendices by Melvyn B. Nathanson and Andrei Sakharov, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale|year=1980|isbn=978-0-809-30962-7|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nDu8AAAAIAAJ}} both published by Southern Illinois University Press.

Nathanson was a frequent collaborator with Paul Erdős, with whom he wrote 19 papers in number theory.{{cite web |url=https://www.renyi.hu/~p_erdos/Erdos.html |title=List of published papers by Paul Erdős |access-date=2014-08-20}} He also organizes the Workshop on Combinatorial and Additive Number Theory, which has been held annually at the Graduate Center, CUNY since 2003.{{cite web |url=http://www.theoryofnumbers.com/ |title=Combinatorial and Additive Number Theory Conference |access-date=2014-08-20}}

Nathanson's essays on political and social issues related to science have appeared in The New York Times,{{cite news |last=Nathanson |first=Melvyn B. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/11/15/opinion/l-it-takes-time-and-money-to-grow-nobel-laureates-093906.html |title=It Takes Time and Money to Grow Nobel Laureates |newspaper=The New York Times |date=November 15, 1981 |access-date=2014-08-21}} The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,{{cite journal |first=Melvyn B. |last=Nathanson |year=1985 |title=Soviet reactors to open for international inspection |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BgYAAAAAMBAJ&q=Bulletin+of+the+Atomic+Scientists+nathanson&pg=PA32 |journal=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists |volume=2 |issue=10 |pages=32–33 |doi=10.1080/00963402.1985.11455980 |bibcode=1985BuAtS..41f..32N |access-date=2014-08-21}} The Mathematical Intelligencer,{{cite journal |first=Melvyn B. |last=Nathanson |year=2010 |title=One, Two, Many: Individuality and Collectivity in Mathematics |journal=The Mathematical Intelligencer |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=5–8 |doi=10.1007/s00283-010-9172-5|s2cid=120190577 }} Notices of the American Mathematical Society,{{cite journal |first=Melvyn B. |last=Nathanson |year=2008 |title=Desperately Seeking Mathematical Truth |url=https://www.ams.org/notices/200807/tx080700773p.pdf |journal=Notices of the American Mathematical Society |volume=55 |issue=7 |pages=773 |arxiv=0809.1372 |access-date=2014-08-21}} and other publications.

He was elected to the 2018 class of fellows of the American Mathematical Society.{{citation|url=http://ams.org/profession/ams-fellows/new-fellows|title=2018 Class of the Fellows of the AMS|publisher=American Mathematical Society|access-date=2017-11-03}}

Personal life

Nathanson is married to Marjorie Frankel Nathanson, Director of the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, New Jersey.{{cite web |url=http://hunterdonartmuseum.org/ |title=Hunterdon Art Museum |access-date=2014-08-20}}

Selected publications

=Books=

{{cite book |title=Additive Number Theory The Classical Bases |first=Melvyn B. |last=Nathanson |series=Graduate Texts in Mathematics |volume=164 |publisher=Springer-Verlag |edition=1st |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-387-94656-6 |url=https://www.springer.com/mathematics/numbers/book/978-0-387-94656-6}}
{{cite book |title=Additive Number Theory: Inverse Problems and the Geometry of Sumsets |first=Melvyn B. |last=Nathanson |series=Graduate Texts in Mathematics |volume=165 |publisher=Springer-Verlag |edition=1st |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-387-94655-9 |url=https://www.springer.com/mathematics/numbers/book/978-0-387-94655-9}}
{{cite book |title=Elementary Methods in Number Theory |first=Melvyn B. |last=Nathanson |series=Graduate Texts in Mathematics |volume=195 |publisher=Springer-Verlag |edition=1st |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-387-98912-9 |url=https://www.springer.com/mathematics/numbers/book/978-0-387-98912-9}}

=Papers=

Nathanson's recent mathematical work is available on the arXiv. Some of his most significant works include:

{{cite encyclopedia |title=Desperately Seeking Mathematical Proof |encyclopedia=The Best Writing on Mathematics 2010 |editor-first=Mircea |editor-last=Pitici |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-691-14841-0 |url=http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9284.html}}
{{cite encyclopedia |title=One, Two, Many: Individuality and Collectivity in Mathematics |encyclopedia=The Best Writing on Mathematics 2011 |editor-first=Mircea |editor-last=Pitici |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2012 |jstor=j.ctt7pgb6 |isbn=978-0-691-15315-5 }}
{{cite encyclopedia |title=The Erdős Paradox|encyclopedia=The Best Writing on Mathematics 2019 |editor-first=Mircea |editor-last=Pitici |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2020 |jstor=j.ctvggx33b |isbn=978-0-691-19867-5}}