Stefan Bergman

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Stefan Bergman (May 5, 1895 in Czestochowa, Congress Poland, Russian Empire - June 1977 in Palo Alto, California) was a Polish-born, Jewish mathematician whose primary work was in complex analysis. He is best known for the kernel function he discovered while at Berlin University in 1922. This function is known today as the Bergman Kernel. Bergman taught for many years at Stanford University, and served as an advisor to several students.^[1]

He received his PhD at Berlin University in 1921 for a dissertation on Fourier analysis. His advisor, Richard von Mises, was a strong influence on him at this time, and remained so for the rest of his career.^[2] In 1933, Bergman was forced to leave his post at the Berlin University because he was a Jew. He fled first to Russia, where he stayed until 1939, and then to Paris, France. In 1939, he emigrated to the United States, where he would remain for the rest of life.^[2]

There is a Stefan Bergman Prize in mathematics. The prize was initiated by Bergman's wife in her will, in memory of her husband's work. The American Mathematical Society supports the prize and selects the committee of judges ^[3]. The prize is awarded for^[3]:

1. the theory of the kernel function and its applications in real and complex analysis; or
2. function-theoretic methods in the theory of partial differential equations of elliptic type with attention to Bergman's operator method.

[edit] References

1. ^ Stefan Bergman at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
2. ^ ^{a b} O'Connor, John J. & Robertson, Edmund F., “Stefan Bergman”, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .
3. ^ ^{a b} Other Prizes and Awards Supported by the AMS