Abraham Robinson: The Creation of Nonstandard Analysis, A Personal and Mathematical Odyssey (Princeton Legacy Library, 307) by Joseph Warren Dauben (PDF)

Description

One of the most prominent mathematicians of the twentieth century, Abraham Robinson discovered and developed nonstandard analysis, a rigorous theory of infinitesimals that he used to unite mathematical logic with the larger body of historic and modern mathematics. In this first biography of Robinson, Joseph Dauben reveals the mathematician’s personal life to have been a dramatic one: developing his talents in spite of war and ethnic repression, Robinson personally confronted some of the worst political troubles of our times. With the skill and expertise familiar to readers of Dauben’s earlier works, the book combines an explanation of Robinson’s revolutionary achievements in pure and applied mathematics with a description of his odyssey from Hitler’s Germany to the United States via conflict-ridden Palestine and wartime Europe.Robinson was born in Prussia in 1918. As a boy, he fled with his mother and brother Saul to Palestine. A decade later he narrowly escaped from Paris as the Germans invaded France. Having spent the rest of World War II in England, at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough, he began his teaching career at the Royal College of Aeronautics. Subsequently he moved to universities in Canada, Israel, and finally the United States. A joint appointment in mathematics and philosophy at UCLA led to a position at Yale University, where Robinson served as Sterling Professor of Mathematics until his untimely death at the age of fifty-five.Originally published in 1995.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Joseph Warren Dauben, Winner of the 2012 Albert Leon Whiteman Memorial Prize, American Mathematical Society””This masterpiece of scientific biography presents the eventful life and the pioneering work of a remarkable figure of twentieth-century pure and applied mathematics as well as symbolic logic. [A] well-written and most carefully researched text [that is] enlightening and delightful to read. Dauben alternates two narratives, biography and the progression of science, not omitting daily and academic life, and their background in general and cultural history, of the stations of Robinson’s odyssey…. The book is bound to become an indispensable source for future historical work.”—Detlef Laugwitz, Mathematical Reviews”Robinson, who expressed a certain preference for ‘glamour,’ led a life that is interesting for its own sake. Dauben’s account of it is engrossingly intimate.”—Albert C. Lewis, Isis

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐The end of the 19th century saw a number of nonarchimedean approaches to geometry and in the early 20th century researchers were trying to use infinitesimals in analysis. Felix Klein considered these attempts all to be failures and declared the first task of any nonarchimedian analysis would be a proof of the Mean Value Theorem. This was achieved shortly before Robinson discovered his version of nonstandard analysis by Curt Schmieden and Detlef Laugwitz. By the time he had published, Robinson was aware of the Schmieden-Laugwitz theory and made slight mention of them. Despite this, Dauben in a book subtitled “the Creation of Nonstandard Analysis” pays no attention to the accomplishments of the two Germans. Nor does he even hint at the existence of earlier failed attempts. As to Robinson’s discovery, surprisingly little is said about it.It would be interesting to explore Robinson’s view of the Schmieden/Laugwitz work. Admittedly their theory was weaker than his. Was he being dismissive, damning it with faint praise because of this, or was he just so carried away with his own work as to not really appreciate theirs? Reading the book gave me no insight into Robinson’s character so I cannot say. One reviewer who knew Robinson did refer to the biography as being somewhat hagiographic, so I assume Robinson’s story is more complex than Dauben’s presentation.

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