James Dugundji (August 30, 1919 – January 8, 1985) was an American mathematician, a professor of mathematics at the
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...
.
[. See in particula]
p. 244
for a brief biography of Dugundji.[Note about the life and work of Dugundji](_blank)
by Andrzej Granas in their book ''Fixed Point Theory'', Springer, 2005. Reprinted in , p. 9.
Dugundji's parents emigrated from
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, where Dugundji was born in 1919. He studied at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
, graduating with a B.A. in 1940, and went on to graduate school at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...
, studying there under the supervision of
Witold Hurewicz
Witold Hurewicz (June 29, 1904 – September 6, 1956) was a Polish mathematician.
Early life and education
Witold Hurewicz was born in Łódź, at the time one of the main Polish industrial hubs with economy focused on the textile industry. His ...
. After two years of study at UNC, Dugundji joined the
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
for the duration of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, and then completed his doctorate from 1946 to 1948 at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
, to which his advisor had moved. He then took a faculty position at the University of Southern California, where he remained for the rest of his career. He was also a long-time member of the editorial boards of two mathematics journals, the ''
Pacific Journal of Mathematics
The Pacific Journal of Mathematics is a mathematics research journal supported by several universities and research institutes, and currently published on their behalf by Mathematical Sciences Publishers, a non-profit academic publishing organisat ...
'' and ''
Topology and its Applications''.
Dugundji is the author of the textbook ''Topology'' (Allyn and Bacon, 1966), on
general topology
In mathematics, general topology is the branch of topology that deals with the basic set-theoretic definitions and constructions used in topology. It is the foundation of most other branches of topology, including differential topology, geomet ...
. Reviewer M. Edelstein wrote that this was "one of the best among the numerous books on the subject", and it went through numerous reprintings. With Andrzej Granas he also wrote the research monograph ''Fixed Point Theory''; originally planned as a two-volume series, the first volume was published by
Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe
Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN (''Polish Scientific Publishers PWN''; until 1991 ''Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe'' - ''National Scientific Publishers PWN'', PWN) is a Polish book publisher, founded in 1951, when it split from the Wydawnictwa Szkolne i P ...
in 1982, and the complete text was published as a single volume in 2003 by
Springer-Verlag
Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing.
Originally founded in 1842 in ...
.
[Review of Fixed Point Theory, Springer-Verlag, 2005, by A. G. Kartsatos, .] Reviewer A. G. Kartsatos called the completed volume "the most comprehensive, well-written and complete book on
fixed point theory
In mathematics, a fixed-point theorem is a result saying that a function ''F'' will have at least one fixed point (a point ''x'' for which ''F''(''x'') = ''x''), under some conditions on ''F'' that can be stated in general terms. Some authors cla ...
to date".
In his own research, as well as producing highly cited works on problems of pure mathematics such as the
Tietze extension theorem
In topology, the Tietze extension theorem (also known as the Tietze–Urysohn–Brouwer extension theorem) states that Continuous function (topology), continuous functions on a closed subset of a Normal space, normal topological space can be extend ...
, Dugundji did important early work in
cheminformatics. With co-authors
I. Ugi, R. Kopp and D. Marquarding, he wrote a book on this subject as well, ''Perspectives in Theoretical Stereochemistry'' (Springer, 1984).
In 2005, an international conference on fixed point theorems was held in Dugundji's memory in
Będlewo
Będlewo is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Stęszew, within Poznań County, Greater Poland Voivodeship, in west-central Poland. It lies approximately south of Stęszew and south-west of the regional capital Poznań.
It is th ...
,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
.
[.]
Selected publications
*
*
* with
Ernest Michael
Ernest A. Michael (August 26, 1925 – April 29, 2013) was a prominent American mathematician known for his work in the field of general topology, most notably for his pioneering research on set-valued mappings. He is credited with developing the ...
:
*
*
*
* with
M. L. Curtis:
* with F.-W. Bauer:
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dugundji, James
1919 births
1985 deaths
20th-century American mathematicians
American people of Greek descent
Scientists from New York City
Topologists
New York University alumni
Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni
University of Southern California faculty
Mathematicians from New York (state)