Daniel E. Gorenstein (January 1, 1923 – August 26, 1992) was an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

. He earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1950 under

Oscar Zariski , birth_date = , birth_place = Kobrin, Russian Empire , death_date = , death_place = Brookline, Massachusetts, United States , nationality = American , field = Mathematics , work_institutions = ...

, introducing in his dissertation a duality principle for plane curves that motivated Grothendieck's introduction of

Gorenstein ring In commutative algebra, a Gorenstein local ring is a commutative Noetherian local ring ''R'' with finite injective dimension as an ''R''-module. There are many equivalent conditions, some of them listed below, often saying that a Gorenstein ring is ...

s. He was a major influence on the

classification of finite simple groups In mathematics, the classification of the finite simple groups is a result of group theory stating that every finite simple group is either cyclic, or alternating, or it belongs to a broad infinite class called the groups of Lie type, or else it ...

. After teaching mathematics to military personnel at Harvard before earning his doctorate, Gorenstein held posts at

Clark University Clark University is a private research university in Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1887 with a large endowment from its namesake Jonas Gilman Clark, a prominent businessman, Clark was one of the first modern research universities in the ...

and

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston. Established in 1898, the university offers undergraduate and graduate programs on its main campus as well as satellite campuses in ...

before he began teaching at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

in 1969, where he remained for the rest of his life. He was the founding director of

DIMACS The Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS) is a collaboration between Rutgers University, Princeton University, and the research firms AT&T, Bell Labs, Applied Communication Sciences, and NEC. It was founded in 1 ...

in 1989, and remained as its director until his death.A history of mathematics at Rutgers
Charles Weibel. Gorenstein was awarded many honors for his work on finite simple groups. He was recognised, in addition to his own research contributions such as work on

signalizer functor In mathematics, a signalizer functor gives the intersections of a potential subgroup of a finite group with the centralizers of nontrivial elements of an abelian group. The signalizer functor theorem gives conditions under which a signalizer functo ...

s, as a leader in directing the classification proof, one of the largest collaborative pieces of

pure mathematics Pure mathematics is the study of mathematical concepts independently of any application outside mathematics. These concepts may originate in real-world concerns, and the results obtained may later turn out to be useful for practical applications, ...

ever attempted. In 1972 he was a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

and a

Fulbright Scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

; in 1978 he gained membership in the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

and the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

, and in 1989 won the Steele Prize for mathematical exposition.

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External links

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Obituary: Professor Daniel Gorenstein

Daniel Gorenstein, 1923-1992
- A Biographical Memoir by Michael Aschbacher 20th-century American mathematicians 1923 births 1992 deaths Group theorists Harvard University alumni Rutgers University faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences {{US-mathematician-stub

See also

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External links