Tobias Dantzig (; February 19, 1884 – August 9, 1956) was a Russian-American mathematician, the father of George Dantzig, and the author of '' Number: The Language of Science (A critical survey written for the cultured non-mathematician)'' (1930) and ''Aspects of Science'' (New York, Macmillan, 1937).

Biography

Born in Shavli (then

Imperial Russia Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor/empress, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * ...

, now

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) into the family of Shmuel Dantzig (?-1940) and Guta Dimant (1863–1917), he grew up in

Łódź Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located south-west of Warsaw. Łódź has a population of 655,279, making it the country's List of cities and towns in Polan ...

and studied mathematics with

Henri Poincaré Jules Henri Poincaré (, ; ; 29 April 185417 July 1912) was a French mathematician, Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosophy of science, philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathemati ...

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.. His brother Jacob (1891-1942) was murdered by the Nazis during the

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; he also had a brother Naftali (who lived in Moscow) and sister Emma. Tobias married a fellow

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student, Anja Ourisson, and the couple emigrated to the

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in 1910. He worked for a time as a lumberjack, road worker, and house painter in

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, until returning to academia at the encouragement of

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mathematician Frank Griffin. Dantzig received his Ph.D. in mathematics from

Indiana University Bloomington Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington, Indiana University, IU, IUB, or Indiana) is a public university, public research university in Bloomington, Indiana, United States. It is the flagship university, flagship campus of Indiana Univer ...

in 1917, while working as a professor there. He later taught at

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, and the

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. Dantzig died in

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in 1956. He was the father of George Dantzig, a key figure in the development of

linear programming Linear programming (LP), also called linear optimization, is a method to achieve the best outcome (such as maximum profit or lowest cost) in a mathematical model whose requirements and objective are represented by linear function#As a polynomia ...

Partial list of publications

*'' Number: The Language of Science'' (1930); *''Aspects of Science'' (1937) *''Henri Poincaré, Critic of Crisis: Reflections on His Universe of Discourse'' (1954) *''The Bequest of the Greeks'' (1955);

References

External links

* 1884 births 1956 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians American science writers Jewish American scientists Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States University of Paris alumni Indiana University Bloomington alumni Johns Hopkins University faculty Columbia University faculty University of Maryland, College Park faculty Expatriates from the Russian Empire in France {{US-mathematician-stub