Biographical Memoirs Volume 80 (2001) / Chapter Skim
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George David Birkhoff
George David Birkhoff
Pages 44-57
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From page 45... ...
In 1901 Birkhoff, who hacl cloubtless founcl the monthly in the oIcl John Crerar Library, began exchanging letters about various questions in the theory of numbers with Vancliver, who was then nineteen years oIcI. This correspondence resultecl in the publication in 1904 of their joint paper in the Annals of Mathematics "On the integral Revisors of an-bn." So far as I know this was Birkhoff's only publication in the theory of numbers, Reprinted with permission from the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (Yearbook 1946, pp.
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From page 46... ...
This is not an unusual age for a European doctorate but, unfortunately for the New World, it is an exceptionally early one in the United States. Birkhoff's student period hacl been cliviclecl between the only two great mathematical centers which existec!
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From page 47... ...
With these researches it seems reasonable to group his work on matrices of analytic functions en cl his remarkable contributions to the theory of linear difference equations, as constituting one of the three principal periods of Birkhoff's scientific activity. In time, this period overlaps his whole career, but his most intense effort in these fielcis belongs to his earlier years.
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From page 48... ...
in the exploratory studies then being macle of analysis situs, as it was callecl before being formalizecl into "topology," en cl saw their close relation to the class of clynamical problems which were at this time taking definite form in his mincI. Inciclentally, he hacl more than one try at the four-color map problem, to solve which remainec!
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From page 49... ...
Their chief characteristics can be seen aIreacly in his first publication, "Que~ques theorems sur le mouvement cles svstemes civnamioues." which appeared! in the Bulletin de la , , ~ Societe Mathematique de France in 1912.
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From page 50... ...
is also a milestone in the progress of measure theory. Birkhoff's proof, which, characteristically, usecl the rough and ready tools picked up along the path which led him to it, has been replacer!
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From page 51... ...
in 1938 in a volume celebrating the semicentennial of the American Mathematical Society. The third phase of Birkhoff's scientific career was that in which he sought to extent!
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From page 52... ...
The American mathematical community has at least been healthy enough to absorb a pretty substantial number of European mathematicians without serious indigestion. Birkhoff was always on the lookout for talent among the young mathematical aspirants who came to Harvard.
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From page 53... ...
Wars. He travelecl extensively en cl accepted a large number of invitations to lecture, both those of an honorific sort en cl those that simply afforded an opportunity to extend mathematical culture into new areas.
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From page 54... ...
35:115-28. The generalized Riemann problem for linear differential equations and the allied problems for linear difference and q-difference equations.
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From page 55... ...
Pisa 4:267-306. Nouvelles recherches sur les systemes dynamiques.
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From page 56... ...
1:198-286. 1936 Sur le probleme restraint des trots corps (second memoire)
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