Steve Simpson (mathematician)
{{short description|American mathematician}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Stephen G. Simpson
| image = Stephen Simpson (mathematician).jpg
| image_size =
| caption = Steve Simpson at Oberwolfach, 2008
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1945|09|08}}
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| field = Mathematics
| work_institutions = Pennsylvania State University Vanderbilt University
| alma_mater = MIT
| doctoral_advisor = Gerald Sacks
| thesis_title = Admissible Ordinals and Recursion Theory
| doctoral_students = {{plainlist|1=
}}
| known_for = Reverse mathematics
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Stephen George Simpson (born September 8, 1945) is an American mathematician whose research concerns the foundations of mathematics, including work in mathematical logic, recursion theory, and Ramsey theory. He is known for his extensive development of the field of reverse mathematics founded by Harvey Friedman, in which the goal is to determine which axioms are needed to prove certain mathematical theorems.{{citation
| last = Elwes | first = Richard
| isbn = 978-1-62365-054-4
| mr = 3222699
| page = 397
| publisher = Quercus, New York
| title = Math in 100 key breakthroughs
| url = http://www.personal.psu.edu/t20/Elwes.pdf
| year = 2013}}. He has also argued for the benefits of finitistic mathematical systems, such as primitive recursive arithmetic, which do not include actual infinity.{{citation|title=Dispute over infinity divides mathematicians|first=Natalie|last=Wolchover|magazine=Scientific American|date=December 6, 2013|url=http://www.personal.psu.edu/t20/131203-Scientific-American.pdf}}.
A conference in honor of Simpson's 70th birthday was organized in May 2016.{{citation|title=The Foundational Impact of Recursion Theory: In honor of Steve Simpson's 70th birthday|url=http://www.marshall.edu/math/FIRT16/|date=May 22, 2016|accessdate=2016-05-06}}.
Education
Simpson graduated in 1966 from Lehigh University with a B.A. (summa cum laude) and M.A. in mathematics.{{citation|title=Curriculum vitae|first=Stephen G.|last=Simpson|date=January 21, 2016|url=http://www.personal.psu.edu/t20/papers/cv.pdf|accessdate=2016-05-06}} He earned a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1971, with a dissertation entitled Admissible Ordinals and Recursion Theory and supervised by Gerald Sacks.{{mathgenealogy|id=22617}}
Career
After short-term positions at Yale University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Oxford, Simpson became an assistant professor at the Pennsylvania State University in 1975. At Penn State, he was Raymond N. Shibley professor from 1987 to 1992.
In 2016, his wife, computer scientist Padma Raghavan, moved from Penn State to Vanderbilt University to become vice provost for research,{{citation|title=Vanderbilt names Padma Raghavan as vice provost for research|first=Melanie|last=Moran|url=http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2015/12/vanderbilt-names-padma-raghavan-vice-provost-for-research/|magazine=Research news @ Vanderbilt|publisher=Vanderbilt University|date=December 2015|accessdate=2016-05-06}}. and Simpson followed her, becoming a research professor at Vanderbilt.{{citation|title=Faculty profile|url=http://as.vanderbilt.edu/math/bio/stephen-simpson|publisher=Vanderbilt University|accessdate=2016-05-06}}.
Selected publications
- {{citation
| last1 = Simpson
| first1 = Stephen G.
| doi = 10.2307/1971028
| mr = 0432435
| title = First order theory of the degrees of recursive unsolvability
| journal = Annals of Mathematics
| volume = 105
| year = 1977
| issue = 1
| pages = 121–139| jstor = 1971028
}}.
- {{citation
| last1 = Friedman | first1 = Harvey M. | authorlink = Harvey Friedman (mathematician)
| last2 = Simpson | first2 = Stephen G.
| last3 = Smith | first3 = Rick L.
| doi = 10.1016/0168-0072(83)90012-X
| issue = 2
| journal = Annals of Pure and Applied Logic
| mr = 725732
| pages = 141–181
| title = Countable algebra and set existence axioms
| volume = 25
| year = 1983| doi-access =
}}.
- {{citation
| last1 = Carlson | first1 = Timothy J.
| last2 = Simpson | first2 = Stephen G.
| doi = 10.1016/0001-8708(84)90026-4 | doi-access=free
| issue = 3
| journal = Advances in Mathematics
| mr = 753869
| pages = 265–290
| title = A dual form of Ramsey's theorem
| volume = 53
| year = 1984}}.
- {{citation
| last = Simpson | first = Stephen G.
| doi = 10.2307/2274508
| issue = 2
| journal = Journal of Symbolic Logic
| mr = 947843
| pages = 349–363
| title = Partial realizations of Hilbert's Program
| volume = 53
| year = 1988| jstor = 2274508
}}.
- {{citation
| last = Simpson | first = Stephen G.
| doi = 10.1007/978-3-642-59971-2
| isbn = 3-540-64882-8
| location = Berlin
| mr = 1723993
| publisher = Springer-Verlag
| series = Perspectives in Mathematical Logic
| title = Subsystems of second order arithmetic
| year = 1999| doi-broken-date = 2024-11-08
}}. 2nd ed., 2009, {{MR|2517689}}.
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://sgslogic.net/ Home page at PSU]
- [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TlJ6xsUAAAAJ Google scholar profile]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Simpson, Steve}}
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:20th-century American mathematicians
Category:Lehigh University alumni
Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni
Category:Pennsylvania State University faculty