Herta Freitag ( Taussig; December 6, 1908 – January 25, 2000) was an

Austrian Austrian may refer to: * Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent ** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen, see Austrian nationality law * Austrian German dialect * Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ...

-American mathematician, a professor of mathematics at

Hollins College Hollins University is a private university in Hollins, Virginia. Founded in 1842 as Valley Union Seminary in the historical settlement of Botetourt Springs, it is one of the oldest institutions of higher education for women in the United States ...

, known for her work on the

Fibonacci numbers In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers, commonly denoted , form a sequence, the Fibonacci sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding ones. The sequence commonly starts from 0 and 1, although some authors start the sequence from ...

Life

She was born as Herta Taussig in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, earning a master's degree from the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hist ...

in 1934. She took a teaching position at the university. However, her father (the editor of ''Die Neue Freie Presse'') had publicly opposed the Nazis. Herta and her parents decided to move to a summer cottage in the mountains outside Vienna, to give themselves some time to make plans for the future. Herta's brother, Walter Taussig, a musician, was touring the United States and decided to remain in the U.S. (Walter later became an assistant conductor for the Metropolitan Opera Company.) Herta and her parents immediately started to work on finding a sponsor to bring them to the United States. However, even when they identified a possible sponsor, they had to wait until their quota number was called up. In 1938, she and her parents emigrated to England. She took a job as a maid as British immigration laws prevented her from entering the country as a teacher. In 1944, she, her brother, and her mother moved to the United States. (Her father had died a year earlier in England). She began teaching mathematics again at the

Greer School Founded in 1906, Hope Farm was a home and school for disadvantaged children in Dutchess County, New York, near Millbrook. The school was renamed Greer School in 1939/40, in honor of its "founding father", David Hummell Greer, the former Protestan ...

Dutchess County, New York Dutchess County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 295,911. The county seat is the city of Poughkeepsie. The county was created in 1683, one of New York's first twelve counties, and later or ...

. She earned a second master's degree in 1948 from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, and a doctorate from Columbia in 1953. Meanwhile, in 1948, she had joined the faculty at Hollins, where she eventually became a full professor and department chair. In 1962 she served as a section president for the Mathematical Association of America, the first woman in her section to do so. She retired in 1971, but returned to teaching again in 1979 after the death of her husband, Arthur Freitag, whom she had married in 1950.

Recognition

Freitag was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1959. After her retirement, she became a frequent contributor to the ''

Fibonacci Quarterly The ''Fibonacci Quarterly'' is a scientific journal on mathematical topics related to the Fibonacci numbers, published four times per year. It is the primary publication of The Fibonacci Association, which has published it since 1963. Its founding ...

'', and the journal honored her in 1996 by dedicating an issue to her on the occasion of her 89th birthday (89 being a Fibonacci number)..

References

Austrian mathematicians 20th-century American mathematicians American women mathematicians Scientists from Vienna University of Vienna alumni Columbia University alumni 1908 births 2000 deaths 20th-century American women scientists Austro-Hungarian mathematicians 20th-century women mathematicians Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Austrian emigrants to the United States {{europe-mathematician-stub