Murray Gerstenhaber (born June 5, 1927) is an American mathematician and professor of mathematics at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, best known for his contributions to

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

with his discovery of

Gerstenhaber algebra In mathematics and theoretical physics, a Gerstenhaber algebra (sometimes called an antibracket algebra or braid algebra) is an algebraic structure discovered by Murray Gerstenhaber (1963) that combines the structures of a supercommutative ring ...

. He is also a lawyer and a lecturer in law at the

University of Pennsylvania Law School The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (also known as Penn Law or Penn Carey Law) is the law school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is among the most selective and oldes ...

Early life and education

Gerstenhaber was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York, to Pauline (née Rosenzweig; who was born in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

; died in 1978) and Joseph Gerstenhaber (who was born in 1892 in Romania; died in 1975). His father was trained as a jeweler, "but being unable to find work in this line he

ook Ook, OoK or OOK may refer to: * Ook Chung (born 1963), Korean-Canadian writer from Quebec * On-off keying, in radio technology * Toksook Bay Airport (IATA code OOK), in Alaska * Ook!, an esoteric programming language based on Brainfuck * Ook, th ...

employment in a factory making airplane precision instruments”. As to his mother, in 2015 he noted:

"For someone born into a minority family without means, I have been exceedingly lucky. The problems faced by talented but disadvantaged children today are preventing many who could be important contributors to the sciences, arts, and society in general, from achieving their potential. They don’t all have mothers like mine, who fought to find a path to education for her child. We have to seek them out but are not doing enough to find them, bring them out of isolation, and give them the opportunities I was so fortunate to have enjoyed."

He was a child prodigy who was profiled in

Leta Hollingworth Leta Stetter Hollingworth (25 May 1886 – 27 November 1939) was an American psychologist, educator, and feminist. Hollingworth also made contributions in psychology of women; clinical psychology; and educational psychology. She is best known for ...

's book ''Children Above 180 IQ'' (1942). In this book, Gerstenhaber was dubbed "Child L," and his prodigious abilities and personality traits were described in great detail. At age 9 years 5 months, a Stanford-Binet test showed him to have a mental age of between 17 and 18 and an IQ between 195 and 198. A second revised Stanford-Binet given a year later found him to have a mental age of 19 years 11 months and an IQ of 199+. He attended the now-defunct

Speyer School ''Note: this article is about two distinct but related schools for gifted education in New York City, USA: the Speyer Legacy School (founded 2009, ongoing), and the Speyer School (1935-1941). The present-day school is named after the earlier one, ...

, a school for rapid learners in New York City. Many years later, his daughter-in-law co-founded Speyer Legacy School, naming the new school after the original. After graduating from Speyer School, Gerstenhaber entered the

Bronx High School of Science The Bronx High School of Science, commonly called Bronx Science, is a public specialized high school in The Bronx in New York City. It is operated by the New York City Department of Education. Admission to Bronx Science involves passing the Sp ...

in 1940. From 1945 to 1947 he served in the infantry in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

as a

corporal Corporal is a military rank in use in some form by many militaries and by some police forces or other uniformed organizations. The word is derived from the medieval Italian phrase ("head of a body"). The rank is usually the lowest ranking non- ...

assigned to the Office of Military Government for Germany."Our Honored Temple Beth Hillel–Beth El Veterans,"
''Veterans Day Program'', November 11, 2017. Gerstenhaber finished his

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

in mathematics at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

(1948).">"C.V."
/ref> At Yale, he participated in the

William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, often abbreviated to Putnam Competition, is an annual mathematics competition for undergraduate college students enrolled at institutions of higher learning in the United States and Canada (regar ...

and was on the team representing Yale University (along with

Murray Gell-Mann Murray Gell-Mann (; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019) was an American physicist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. He was the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Theoretical ...

and

Henry O. Pollak Henry Otto Pollak (born December 13, 1927) is an Austrian-Americans, American mathematician. He is known for his contributions to information theory, and with Ronald Graham is the namesake of the Graham–Pollak theorem in graph theory. Born in ...

) that won the second prize in 1947; each of them received a monetary prize of $30 ($ in current dollar terms). His 1948 participation in the competition earned him a Top 10 ranking. He earned an

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

and a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

(1951) in mathematics from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

, under the instruction of

Abraham Adrian Albert Abraham Adrian Albert (November 9, 1905 – June 6, 1972) was an American mathematician. In 1939, he received the American Mathematical Society's Cole Prize in Algebra for his work on Riemann matrices. He is best known for his work on the A ...

. Gerstenhaber's dissertation was entitled "Rings of Derivations." Gerstenhaber earned a J.D. from the

in 1973, and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1974.

Career

Gerstenhaber was an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at the

from 1953 to 1958, rising to associate professor (1958–61), and full professor (1961–present) and chairman. His research interests include: Algebraic Deformation Theory,

Universal Algebra Universal algebra (sometimes called general algebra) is the field of mathematics that studies algebraic structures themselves, not examples ("models") of algebraic structures. For instance, rather than take particular groups as the object of stu ...

Quantum Groups In mathematics and theoretical physics, the term quantum group denotes one of a few different kinds of noncommutative algebras with additional structure. These include Drinfeld–Jimbo type quantum groups (which are quasitriangular Hopf algebra ...

, and Statistics for Law. He is best known for his contributions to

with his discovery of

. Among his writings have been "Algebraic cohomology and deformation theory," with SD Schack, ''Deformation theory of algebras and structures and applications'', 11–264 (1988), "On the deformation of rings and algebras," ''Annals of Mathematics'', Second Series, Vol. 79, No. 1 (Jan., 1964), pp. 59–103, and "The cohomology structure of an associative ring," ''Annals of Mathematics'', Second Series, Vol. 78, 267–288 (1963). For these last two papers he received in 2021 the

Leroy P. Steele Prize The Leroy P. Steele Prizes are awarded every year by the American Mathematical Society, for distinguished research work and writing in the field of mathematics. Since 1993, there has been a formal division into three categories. The prizes have b ...

for Seminal Contribution to Research. Gerstenhaber noted in 1990: “The ability to hang in there has a lot to do with scientific productivity, I am convinced. And in mathematics … hanging in there is a solitary accomplishment.” Gerstenhaber was chairman of the faculty senate at the University of Pennsylvania from 1982 to 1983. He is also a lecturer in law at the

, teaching a seminar on statistics for law. In 2012 he became a Fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

, and was a member of its council. Gerstenhaber was the managing editor of the ''Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society''. Gerstenhaber is also a

Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS) is an honor accorded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to distinguished persons who are members of the Association. Fellows are elected ...

. In 2021 he received the Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research.

Personal

Gerstenhaber married Dr. Ruth Priscilla Zager on June 3, 1956, in the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York City. They have lived in

Merion Station, Pennsylvania Merion Station, also known as Merion, is an unincorporated community in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It borders Philadelphia to its west and is one of the communities that make up the Philadelphia Main Line. Merion Station is part of Lower Me ...

, and

Haverford, Pennsylvania Haverford is an unincorporated community located in both Haverford Township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, and Lower Merion Township in Montgomery County, approximately west of Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) ope ...

, and have three children: Jeremy M. Gerstenhaber, David Ezra Gerstenhaber (now founder, president, and portfolio manager at Argonaut Management), and Rachel Rebecca Stern (now general counsel and head of strategic resources of FactSet). His son David, a hedge fund manager and

Tiger Management Tiger Management Corp., also known as "The Tiger Fund", is an American hedge fund and family office founded by Julian Robertson. The fund began investing in 1980 and closed in March 2000/01. It continues to operate today in direct public equit ...

alumnus, is married to financier Steven Posner's daughter Kelly.Melanie Grayce West (June 11, 2012)
"Guiding Gifted Students,"
''The Wall Street Journal''.

References

External links

Personal homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gerstenhaber, Murray American people of Romanian-Jewish descent Jewish American scientists Jewish physicists Jewish American academics Jewish American attorneys 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Mathematical physicists Theoretical physicists Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Yale University alumni University of Chicago alumni University of Pennsylvania Law School alumni University of Pennsylvania Law School faculty University of Pennsylvania faculty Mathematicians at the University of Pennsylvania 1927 births Living people The Bronx High School of Science alumni Scientists from New York City Lawyers from New York City Mathematicians from New York (state) Mathematicians from Philadelphia People from Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania People from Haverford Township, Pennsylvania 21st-century American Jews

Early life and education

Career

Personal

See also

References

External links