Joseph Bishop Keller (July 31, 1923 – September 7, 2016) was an American mathematician who specialized in applied mathematics. He was best known for his work on the "geometrical theory of diffraction" (GTD).
Early life and education
Born in
Paterson, New Jersey
Paterson ( ) is the largest City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Eastside High School, where he was a member of the math team. After earning his undergraduate degree in 1943 at New York University, Keller obtained his PhD in 1948 from NYU under the supervision of Richard Courant. He was a Professor of Mathematics in the Courant Institute at New York University until 1979. Then he was Professor of Mathematics and Mechanical Engineering at
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
eigenvalues
In linear algebra, an eigenvector () or characteristic vector of a linear transformation is a nonzero vector that changes at most by a scalar factor when that linear transformation is applied to it. The corresponding eigenvalue, often denoted b ...
Keller was awarded a Lester R. Ford Award (shared with David W. McLaughlin) in 1976 and (not shared) in 1977. In 1988 he was awarded the U.S. National Medal of Science, and in 1997 he was awarded the Wolf Prize by the Israel-based
Wolf Foundation
The Wolf Foundation is a private not-for-profit organization in Israel established in 1975 by Ricardo Wolf, a German-born Jewish Cuban inventor and former Cuban ambassador to Israel.
Ricardo Wolf
Ricardo Wolf, the founder of the Wolf Foundat ...
. In 1996, he was awarded the Nemmers Prize in Mathematics. In 1999 he was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for calculating how to make a teapot spout that does not drip. With Patrick B. Warren, Robin C. Ball and
Raymond E. Goldstein
Raymond Ethan Goldstein (born 1961) FRS FInstP is Schlumberger Professor of Complex Physical Systems in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Churchill College, Ca ...
Alice S. Whittemore
Alice Segers Whittemore is an American epidemiologist and biostatistician who studies the effects of genetics and lifestyle on cancer, after an earlier career as a pure mathematician studying group theory. She works as a professor of health researc ...
, started her career as a pure mathematician but shifted her interests to epidemiology and
biostatistics
Biostatistics (also known as biometry) are the development and application of statistical methods to a wide range of topics in biology. It encompasses the design of biological experiments, the collection and analysis of data from those experime ...
.
Keller had a brother who was also a mathematician,
Herbert B. Keller
Herbert Bishop Keller (19 June 1925 in Paterson, New Jersey – 26 January 2008 in Pasadena, California) was an American applied mathematician and numerical analyst. He was professor of applied mathematics, emeritus, at the California Institute ...
fluid dynamics
In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids— liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including ''aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) an ...
. Joseph Keller died in
Stanford
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...
, California on September 7, 2016 from a recurrence of kidney cancer first diagnosed in 2003.
Major publications
* J.B. Keller. ''On solutions of Δu=f(u).'' Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 10 (1957), 503–510.
* Edward W. Larsen and Joseph B. Keller. ''Asymptotic solution of neutron transport problems for small mean free paths.'' J. Mathematical Phys. 15 (1974), 75–81.
* Joseph B. Keller and Dan Givoli. ''Exact nonreflecting boundary conditions.'' J. Comput. Phys. 82 (1989), no. 1, 172–192.
* Jacob Rubinstein, Peter Sternberg, and Joseph B. Keller. ''Fast reaction, slow diffusion, and curve shortening.'' SIAM J. Appl. Math. 49 (1989), no. 1, 116–133.
* Marcus J. Grote and Joseph B. Keller. ''On nonreflecting boundary conditions.'' J. Comput. Phys. 122 (1995), no. 2, 231–243.
* Leonid Ryzhik, George Papanicolaou, and Joseph B. Keller. ''Transport equations for elastic and other waves in random media.'' Wave Motion 24 (1996), no. 4, 327–370.