Felix Browder | |
|---|---|
 Browder atUC Berkeley in 1982 | |
| Born | (1927-07-31)July 31, 1927 |
| Died | December 10, 2016(2016-12-10) (aged 89) Princeton, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Education | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS) Princeton University (MS,PhD) |
| Known for | Nonlinearfunctional analysis Browder fixed-point theorem Browder–Minty theorem |
| Children | 2, includingBill |
| Father | Earl Browder |
| Relatives | William Browder(brother) Andrew Browder(brother) Joshua Browder(grandson) |
| Awards | National Medal of Science(1999) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematical analysis |
| Institutions | Rutgers University, New Brunswick University of Chicago Yale University Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Thesis | The Topological Fixed Point Theory and Its Applications in Functional Analysis (1948) |
| Doctoral advisor | Solomon Lefschetz Witold Hurewicz |
| Doctoral students | Richard Beals Thomas K. Donaldson Roger D. Nussbaum |
Felix Earl Browder (/ˈbraʊdər/; July 31, 1927 – December 10, 2016) was an American mathematician known for his work innonlinear functional analysis.[1] He received theNational Medal of Science in 1999 and was President of theAmerican Mathematical Society until 2000. His two younger brothers also became notable mathematicians,William Browder (analgebraic topologist) andAndrew Browder[2] (a specialist infunction algebras).
Felix Earl Browder was born in 1927 inMoscow,Russia, while his American fatherEarl Browder, born inWichita, Kansas, was living and working there. He had gone to the Soviet Union in 1927. His mother was Raissa Berkmann, a Russian Jewish woman from St. Petersburg whom Browder met and married while living in the Soviet Union.[3] As a child, Felix Browder moved with his family to the United States, where his father Earl Browder for a time was head of the American Communist Party and ran for US president in 1936 and 1940.[3] A 1999 book byAlexander Vassiliev, published after the fall of the Soviet Union, said that Earl Browder was recruited in the 1940s as a spy for the Soviet Union.[4]
Felix Browder was a child prodigy in mathematics; he enteredMIT at age 16 in 1944 and graduated in 1946 with his first degree in mathematics. In 1946, at MIT he achieved the rank of a Putnam Fellow in theWilliam Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition.[5] In 1948, at age 20, he received his doctorate fromPrinceton University.
Browder had an academic career, encountering difficulty in the 1950s in getting work during theMcCarthy era because of his father's communist activities.[citation needed]
Browder headed theUniversity of Chicago's mathematics department for 12 years. He also held posts atMIT,Boston University, Brandeis andYale. In 1986 he became the first vice president for research atRutgers University.[6]
Browder received the 1999National Medal of Science.[7][6] He also served as president of theAmerican Mathematical Society from 1999 to 2000.
In his outgoing presidential address at the American Mathematical Society, Browder noted, "ideas and techniques from one set of mathematical sources imping[ing] fruitfully on the same thing from another set of mathematical sources" as illustration ofbisociation (a term fromArthur Koestler). He also recounted the moves against mathematics in France byClaude Allègre as problematic.[8]
Browder was known for his personal library, which contained some thirty-five thousand books. "The library has a number of different categories," he said. "There is mathematics, physics and science as well as philosophy, literature and history, with a certain number of volumes of contemporary political science and economics. It is a polymath library. I am interested in everything and my library reflects all my interests."[9][page needed]
Browder married Eva Tislowitz in 1949, born to Jewish parents. Their children includedThomas Browder,[10] a physicist specializing in the experimental study of subatomic particles, andBill Browder, who became CEO ofHermitage Capital Management and resides inLondon.
The late Dr. Browder had two younger brothers who were also research mathematicians,William (analgebraic topologist) andAndrew Browder[2] (a specialist infunction algebras). Browder died in 2016 at home inPrinceton, New Jersey, aged 89.[11] "In addition to his brothers, survivors include the above mentioned two sons, Thomas Browder of Honolulu and Bill Browder of London; and five grandchildren."
For Mr. Browder, 44, Russia was more than a place to do business. His grandfather Earl Browder was a Communist from Kansas who moved to the Soviet Union in 1927, staying for several years and marrying a Russian. He returned with her to the United States to lead the Communist Party for a time, even running for president.
