Robert Samuel Finn (August 8, 1922 – August 16, 2022) was an American mathematician.

Early life and education

Finn was born in Buffalo, New York. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...

and a PhD in mathematics from

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

. Studying under Abe Gelbart, Finn completed a thesis titled ''On some properties of the solution of a class of non-linear partial differential equations''.

Career

He completed post-doctoral research at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1953 and at the Institute for Hydrodynamics of the University of Maryland from 1953 to 1954. In 1954, he became an assistant professor at the University of Southern California and in 1956 an associate professor at California Institute of Technology. Beginning in 1959, he was a professor 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 ...

. At the beginning of his career, Finn did research on minimal surfaces and

quasiconformal mapping In mathematical complex analysis, a quasiconformal mapping, introduced by and named by , is a homeomorphism between plane domains which to first order takes small circles to small ellipses of bounded eccentricity. Intuitively, let ''f'' : ''D' ...

s and later in his career on mathematical problems of hydrodynamics, such as mathematically rigorous treatments of capillary action. He was a visiting professor at the University of Bonn and several other universities. He was an exchange scientist in 1978 at the Soviet Academy of Sciences and in 1987 at the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin. In 1994 he received an honorary doctorate from the Leipzig University. For the academic years 1958–1959 and 1965–1966, he held

Guggenheim Fellowship 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 ...

s. From 1979, he was an editor of the '' Pacific Journal of Mathematics''.

Personal life

Finn

turned 100 A centenarian is a person who has reached the age of 100 years. Because life expectancies worldwide are below 100 years, the term is invariably associated with longevity. In 2012, the United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living cente ...

on August 8, 2022. He died eight days later, in Palo Alto, California, on August 16, 2022.

Selected works

* * * * with Paul Concus: *

References

External links

* 1922 births 2022 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Syracuse University alumni Stanford University faculty Geometers Mathematicians from New York (state) Writers from Buffalo, New York Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars University System of Maryland people University of Southern California faculty California Institute of Technology faculty Men centenarians American centenarians {{US-mathematician-stub