Tobias Dantzig
{{Short description|Russian-American mathematician and author}}
Tobias Dantzig ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|d|æ|n|t|s|ɪ|ɡ}}; February 19, 1884 – August 9, 1956) was a Russian-American mathematician, the father of George Dantzig, 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).
Biography
Born in Shavli[https://books.google.com/books?id=Q6OdkTmpvE8C&pg=PA218&lpg=PA218&dq= Profiles in Operations Research: Pioneers and Innovators][http://www.ganino.com/games/Science/science%20magazine%201940-1957/root/data/Science_1940-1957/pdf/1956_v124_n3225/p3225_0714.pdf T. Dantzig, Historian and Interpreter of Mathematics] (then Imperial Russia, now Lithuania) into the family of Shmuel Dantzig (?-1940) and Guta Dimant (1863–1917), he grew up in Łódź and studied mathematics with Henri Poincaré in Paris.{{citation|contribution=George B. Dantzig|title=More Mathematical People|editor1-first=Donald J.|editor1-last=Albers|editor2-first=Gerald L.|editor2-last=Alexanderson|editor2-link=Gerald L. Alexanderson|editor3-first=Constance|editor3-last=Reid|publisher=Harcourt Brace Jovanovich|year=1990|pages=60–79}}. His brother Jacob (1891-1942) was murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust; he also had a brother Naftali (who lived in Moscow) and sister Emma.
Tobias married a fellow Sorbonne University student, Anja Ourisson, and the couple emigrated to the United States in 1910. He worked for a time as a lumberjack, road worker, and house painter in Oregon, until returning to academia at the encouragement of Reed College mathematician Frank Griffin. Dantzig received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Indiana University Bloomington in 1917, while working as a professor there.Hosch WL Tobias Dantzig, Encyclopædia Britannica [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1555771/Tobias-Dantzig Online Academic Edition]. He later taught at Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, and the University of Maryland, College Park.
Dantzig died in Los Angeles in 1956. He was the father of George Dantzig, a key figure in the development of linear programming.
Partial list of publications
- Number: The Language of Science (1930);{{cite journal|author=Miller, G. A.|author-link=George Abram Miller|title=Review of Number: The Language of Science by Tobias Dantzig|journal=Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.|year=1931|volume=37|page=9|url=http://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1931-37-01/S0002-9904-1931-05073-4/S0002-9904-1931-05073-4.pdf|doi=10.1090/s0002-9904-1931-05073-4|doi-access=free}} {{cite book|title=reprint of 4th edition|publisher=Penguin|year=2007|isbn=9780452288119|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pg_RKtlVlNMC}}
- Aspects of Science (1937)
- The Story of Geometry (1940)
- Henri Poincaré, Critic of Crisis: Reflections on His Universe of Discourse (1954)
- The Bequest of the Greeks (1955); {{cite book|title=Dover reprint|year=2006|isbn=9780486453477|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZQvmDAAAQBAJ|last1=Dantzig|first1=Tobias|publisher=Courier Corporation}}
References
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External links
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- {{MathGenealogy|id=1995}}
{{Authority control}}
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Category:20th-century American mathematicians
Category:American science writers
Category:Jewish American scientists
Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States
Category:University of Paris alumni
Category:Indiana University Bloomington alumni
Category:Johns Hopkins University faculty
Category:Columbia University faculty
Category:University of Maryland, College Park faculty
Category:Expatriates from the Russian Empire in France
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