Menahem Max Schiffer Explained

Menahem Max Schiffer (24 September 1911, Berlin  - 11 November 1997)[1] [2]) was a German-born American mathematician who worked in complex analysis, partial differential equations, and mathematical physics.

Biography

Menachem Max Schiffer studied physics from 1930 at the University of Bonn and then at the Humboldt University of Berlin with Max von Laue, Erwin Schrödinger, Walter Nernst, Erhard Schmidt, Issai Schur and Ludwig Bieberbach. In Berlin he worked closely with Issai Schur. In 1934, after being forced by the Nazis to leave the academic world, he immigrated to Mandatory Palestine.

On the basis of his prior mathematical publications, Schiffer received a master's degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1938, he received his doctorate under the supervision of Michael Fekete. In his dissertation on Conformal representation and univalent functions[3] he introduced the "Schiffer variation", a method for handling geometric problems in complex analysis.

Schiffer married Fanya Rabinivics Schiffer in 1937. His daughter Dinah S. Singer, is an experimental immunologist.[4]

Academic career

In September 1952, he began to teach at Stanford University,[5] along with George Pólya, Charles Loewner, Stefan Bergman, and Gábor Szegő.

With Paul Garabedian, Schiffer worked on the Bieberbach conjecture with a proof in 1955 of the special case n=4. He was a speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in 1950 at Cambridge, Massachusetts,[6] [7] and was a plenary speaker at the ICM in 1958 at Edinburgh with plenary address Extremum Problems and Variational Methods in Conformal Mapping.[8] In 1970 he was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences. He retired from Stanford University as professor emeritus in 1977.

In 1981, Schiffer became a founding member of the World Cultural Council.[9]

Selected publications

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Menahem Max Schiffer (1911 - 1997) . mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk . 7 April 2022.
  2. https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VPCP-WQZ Person Details for Alpern in entry for Menahem M Schiffer, "California Death Index, 1940–1997 — FamilySearch.org
  3. Menahem Max Schiffer. Notices of the AMS. September 2002. 49. 8. 886.
  4. https://ccr.cancer.gov/Experimental-Immunology-Branch/dinah-s-singer Dinah S. Singer, Ph.D. | Center for Cancer Research
  5. http://histsoc.stanford.edu/pdfmem/SchifferM.pdf Memorial Resolution, Menahem Max Schiffer (1911–1997), Stanford University
  6. The International Congress of Mathematicians. Kline, J. R.. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.. 1951. 57. 1–10. 10.1090/S0002-9904-1951-09429-X . free.
  7. Book: Schiffer, Menahem. Variational methods in the theory of conformal mapping. In: Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A., August 30–September 6, 1950. 2. 233–240. 1950. http://www.mathunion.org/ICM/ICM1950.2/Main/icm1950.2.0233.0240.ocr.pdf.
  8. Book: Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians: 14–21 August 1958. 9781107622661. Todd. J. A.. 2013-09-12. Cambridge University Press .
  9. Web site: About Us . . November 8, 2016.
  10. Henrici, Peter. Peter Henrici (mathematician). Review: Kernel functions and elliptic differential equations in mathematical physics by S. Bergman and M. Schiffer. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.. 1955. 61. 6. 596–600. 10.1090/s0002-9904-1955-10005-5. free.
  11. Ahlfors, Lars V.. Review: Functionals of finite Riemann surfaces by M. M. Schiffer and D. C. Spencer. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.. 61. 1955. 6. 581–584. 10.1090/s0002-9904-1955-09998-1. free.
  12. Boyer, R. H.. Review: Introduction to General Relativity by Ronald Adler, Maurice Bazin, and Menahem Schiffer. Science. 7 May 1965. 148. 3671. 808–809. 10.1126/science.148.3671.808.

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