Albuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding in ...
From 1944 to 1946, Marvin Marcus served in the United States Navy. At the University of California, Berkeley, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1950 and a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1953. His Ph.D. thesis ''The application of fixed-point theorems to the perturbation of ordinary differential equations'' was supervised by Stephen P. L. Diliberto.
At the University of British Columbia (UBC), Marcus was an instructor from 1954 to 1955, an assistant professor from 1955 to 1956, and an associate professor from 1957 to 1962. At UBC he became a friend of
Henryk Minc Henryk may refer to:
* Henryk (given name)
* Henryk, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, a village in south-central Poland
* Henryk Glacier, an Antarctic glacier
See also
* Henryk Batuta hoax, an internet hoax
* Henrykian articles
The Henrician Art ...
and supervised the master's thesis of Robert Charles Thompson. For the academic year 1956–1957 Marcus was on sabbatical in Washington, D.C. at the National Bureau of Standards, where he worked with Morris Newman (1924–2007). At the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), he was a full professor from 1962 to 1991, when he retired as professor emeritus. He chaired UCSB's mathematics department from 1963 and 1969 and created what gained an international reputation as the "Santa Barbara School of Linear Algebra". While chairing the department, he hired Henryk Minc, Robert Charles Thompson, and
Ky Fan
Ky Fan (樊𰋀, , September 19, 1914 – March 22, 2010) was a Chinese-born American mathematician. He was a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Biography
Fan was born in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejian ...
and brought many distinguished visiting mathematicians:
Hans Heilbronn
Hans Arnold Heilbronn (8 October 1908 – 28 April 1975) was a mathematician.
Education
He was born into a German-Jewish family. He was a student at the universities of Berlin, Freiburg and Göttingen, where he met Edmund Landau, who supervised ...
Magnus Hestenes
Magnus Rudolph Hestenes (February 13, 1906 – May 31, 1991) was an American mathematician best known for his contributions to calculus of variations and optimal control. As a pioneer in computer science, he devised the conjugate gradient method, ...
H. J. Ryser
Herbert John Ryser (July 28, 1923 – July 12, 1985) was a professor of mathematics, widely regarded as one of the major figures in combinatorics in the 20th century.Hans Schneider, Olga Taussky-Todd, John "Jack" Todd, and
Hans Zassenhaus
Hans Julius Zassenhaus (28 May 1912 – 21 November 1991) was a German mathematician, known for work in many parts of abstract algebra, and as a pioneer of computer algebra.
Biography
He was born in Koblenz in 1912.
His father was a historian and ...
, as well as the then unknown
Richard A. Brualdi
R. A. Brualdi is a professor emeritus of combinatorial mathematics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Brualdi received his Ph.D. from Syracuse University in 1964; his advisor was H. J. Ryser. Brualdi is an Editor-in-Chief of the Electroni ...
. At UCSB, Marcus held an appointment in the mathematics department from 1962 to 1983, joint appointments in both the mathematics and computer science departments from 1983 to 1987, and an appointment solely in the computer science department from 1987 to 1991. He founded UCSB's Microcomputer Laboratory in 1979.
During the years 1963 to 1969, UCSB mathematicians did significant research on such topics as monotone matrix functions in the sense of Charles Loewner,
linear operator
In mathematics, and more specifically in linear algebra, a linear map (also called a linear mapping, linear transformation, vector space homomorphism, or in some contexts linear function) is a mapping V \to W between two vector spaces that pre ...
immanant
In mathematics, the immanant of a matrix (mathematics), matrix was defined by Dudley E. Littlewood and Archibald Read Richardson as a generalisation of the concepts of determinant and Permanent (mathematics), permanent.
Let \lambda=(\lambda_1,\la ...
s and other generalized matrix functions. At UCSB Marcus established the semiautonomous Institute for Interdisciplinary Applications of Algebra and Combinatorics, which he directed from 1973 to 1979. Marcus was one of the founding editors of the journal '' Linear Algebra and Its Applications''. With Robert Charles Thompson, he was the co-founder of the journal ''Linear and Multilinear Algebra'', whose first issue was published in 1973. He was the section editor for linear algebra in Addison-Wesley's series ''Encyclopedia of mathematics and its applications''.
According to Marcus's former doctoral student Robert Grone, Marcus did pioneering, fundamental research in "numerical ranges, matrix inequalities, linear preservers and multilinear algebra". Marcus was the author or co-author of more than 200 articles and problem solutions and more than 20 books. His three most important books might be ''Finite Dimensional Multilinear Algebra, Part I'' (1973, Marcel Dekker), ''Finite Dimensional Multilinear Algebra, Part II'' (1975, Marcel Dekker), and ''A Survey of Matrix Theory and Matrix Inequalities'' (1st edition 1964; reprint 1969; Dover reprint 1992).
In 1966, Marcus and Minc received the
Mathematical Association of America
The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university, college, and high school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure a ...
's
Lester R. Ford Award
Lester is an ancient Anglo-Saxon surname and given name. Notable people and characters with the name include:
People
Given name
* Lester Bangs (1948–1982), American music critic
* Lester W. Bentley (1908–1972), American artist from Wisc ...
for their 1965 article ''Permanents''.
Personal life
In 1951 in California, Marvin Marcus married Arlen Ingrid Sahlman (1923–2005). They became the parents of a son and a daughter, but later divorced. Marvin Marcus was predeceased by his second wife — there were no children from his second marriage. He enjoyed playing tennis and reading about science and narratives written by travelers.