Alexander Oppenheim
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Sir Alexander Victor Oppenheim, OBE (February 4, 1903–1997) was a mathematician and a member of the famous Oppenheim and Rothschild banking families. Oppenheim is best known for his discovery of the Oppenheim conjecture and his contributions to quadratic and diophantine equations. His work was considered an early proponent of the impossibility of reaching a general solution in diophantine equations also known as Hilbert's Tenth Problem which was proved by Yuri Matiyasevich in 1970.
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[edit] Early life
Oppenheim was born February 4, 1903 in Salford, England, his first language being Yiddish. He went on to attend the esteemed Manchester Grammar School. He graduated from Oxford University in 1927. He was a Commonwealth Fellow at Princeton University and later received a Ph. D. at University of Chicago in 1930 with his thesis, "Minima of Indefinite Quadratic Quaternary Forms". He later received a secondary doctorate in science (D.Sc.) from Oxford University for Theoretical Mathematics. He travelled extensively throughout the world and was a visiting professor in 8 countries. He was captured by the Japanese with the fall of Singapore during the Second World War and he, alongside thousands of Allied POW's were subsequently used as slave labour for the infamous Burmese 'Railroad of Death' where many perished. In keeping with intellect, he reflected some of his memories in his work, "The prisoner's walk: an exercise in number theory" which was not published until 1984.
[edit] Later life
Oppenheim went on to become the Dean and eventually Vice-Chancellor of the Universities of Malaysia and Singapore. He wrote several mathematics textbooks and several hundred publications. He was awarded the distinguished alumni medal from Chicago University, and was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for outstanding lifetime contribution to the applied field of mathematics and was knighted in 1961.
