Julia Robinson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Julia Hall Bowman Robinson | |
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| Born | December 8, 1919 St. Louis, Missouri, United States |
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| Died | July 30, 1985 Oakland, California, United States |
| Citizenship | American |
| Fields | Mathematician |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley |
| Doctoral advisor | Alfred Tarski |
| Known for | Diophantine equations Decidability |
| Influenced | Yuri Matiyasevich |
| Notable awards | Noether Lecturer MacArthur Fellow |
Julia Hall Bowman Robinson (December 8, 1919 – July 30, 1985) was an American mathematician, born in St. Louis, Missouri. She completed her undergraduate and graduate degrees at University of California, Berkeley, receiving the doctorate in 1948. In 1976, Robinson was elected as the first female member of the mathematical division of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1982 she was selected to be a Noether Lecturer. In 1983 she was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. In addition, she was the first woman president of the American Mathematical Society. She died in Oakland, California of leukemia at the age of 65.
She is best known for her work on Diophantine equations and decidability which provided much of the ground work for the negative solution of Hilbert's tenth problem by Yuri Matiyasevich. In fact Robinson only strayed from this topic twice. The first was her thesis on effective solvability and unsolvability of mathematical problems. The second was in game theory where she proved that the fictitious play dynamics converges to the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium in two-player zero-sum games.
She married the mathematician Raphael Robinson in 1941. Her older sister, Constance Reid, is a well-known mathematical biographer.
George Csicsery produced and directed a one-hour documentary about Robinson titled Julia Robinson and Hilbert's Tenth Problem, that premiered at the Joint Mathematics Meeting in San Diego on January 7, 2008. Notices of the American Mathematical Society printed a film review [1] and an interview with the director. [2]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Wood, Carol (May 2008). "Film Review: Julia Robinson and Hilbert's Tenth Problem" (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society 55 (5): 573-575. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society. ISSN 00029920.
- ^ Casselman, Bill (May 2008). "Interview with George Csicsery" (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society 55 (5): 576-578. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society. ISSN 00029920.
[edit] Further reading
- Reid, Constance (1997). Julia: A Life in Mathematics. Mathematical Association of America. ISBN 0-88385-520-8.
[edit] External links
- National Academy of Science Biographical Memoir written by Solomon Feferman
- O'Connor, John J. & Robertson, Edmund F., “Julia Robinson”, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
- Julia Robinson at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- GameTheory.net blurb on Robinson
- Julia Bowman Robinson on the Internet (mirror)
- website for Julia Robinson and Hilbert's Tenth Problem by George Paul 'Duke' Csicsery
- Noether Booklet
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robinson, Julia |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Mathematician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 8, 1919 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 30, 1985 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
