Abraham Ginzburg

Abraham Ginzburg (1926–2020) was a Professor Emeritus of Computer Science. He served as Vice President of the Technion Institute,[1] and President of the Open University of Israel[1][2]

Abraham Ginzburg
אברהם גינזבורג
Abraham Ginzburg
Born	1 August 1926 Navahrudak, Belarus
Died	30 December 2020 (aged 94) Tel Aviv, Israel
Nationality	Israeli
Known for	Automata theory The Erdős–Ginzburg–Ziv theorem
Title	President of the Open University of Israel

Biography

Ginzburg was born on 1 August 1926 in Navahrudak, Belarus. He began acquiring his education during World War II, after which he taught the children of Sh'erit ha-Pletah mathematics. In 1949, Ginzburg immigrated to Israel, and began studying in the Technion Faculty of Electrical Engineering, where he received his BSc summa cum laude. Three years later, he acquired a Master's degree in electrical engineering and in 1959, he received his PhD in mathematics, and was appointed lecturer in the Faculty of Mathematics of the Technion.

During 1965–1967, he served as a visiting lecturer in Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.[3] Upon returning to Israel in 1967, he was appointed associate professor of Mathematics in the Technion Institute, and in 1971 to a Professor of Computer Science. Ginzburg founded the Department of computer science in the Technion, and served as its first head of department.[4] Later, he served as the vice president of development of the Technion.[1]

In 1976, Ginzburg took part in the formation of the Open University of Israel, as its vice president,[5] and from 1977 until 1987 served as its president[6]

Ginzburg received an Honorary degree from the UK Open University in 1988, an Honorary PhD from the Weizmann Institute in 1990,[7] and, in 2002 was awarded a Rotary Prize for the promotion of higher education in Israel.[6]

Ginzburg was married to Pnina, and was a father of five.

Research

Ginzburg completed his PhD in mathematics in the year 1959. The thesis title was "Multiplicative Systems as Homomorphic Images of Square Sets", and was done under the supervision of Prof. Dov Tamari.[8]

During the early '60s, Ginzburg was involved in research in basic group theory, graph theory and automata, and frequently collaborated with Michael Yoeli.[9][10][11][12]

In 1961, Ginzburg, in collaboration with Paul Erdős and Abraham Ziv, proved the Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv Theorem.[13] This Theorem is an important result in Abelian group theory, and is cited to this day.

In 1968, Ginzburg published his book "Algebraic Theory of Automata".[14]

Ginzburg also invested a lot of time in writing several Textbooks in mathematics, for high school and first degree Mathematics and Engineering students.[15]

References

1. Gross, Ronald (7 January 1979). "Israel's Everyman – A Second Chance to Go to College". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
2. "Faculty founder Prof. Avraham Ginzburg has passed away" (in Hebrew). Technion. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
3. Ginzburg, Abraham (1 January 1966). "Six lectures on algebraic theory of automata". Figshare. doi:10.1184/R1/6560897.v1.
4. "A Graduates conference of the 1970s in the Faculty of Computer Science, Technion". 2002.
5. https://in.bgu.ac.il/bgi/iyunim/31/Uri-Cohen.pdf Page 116
6. "פרופ' אברהם גינזבורג". www.openu.ac.il. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
7. "Ph.D. Honoris Causa". Academic Affairs Office. 1 July 2015. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
8. Tamari, D.; Ginzburg, A. (1 March 1969). "Representation of binary systems by families of binary relations". Israel Journal of Mathematics. 7 (1): 21–32. doi:10.1007/BF02771743. ISSN 1565-8511. S2CID 121914674.
9. Ginzburg, A.; Yoeli, M. (1 June 1980). "Vector addition systems and regular languages". Journal of Computer and System Sciences. 20 (3): 277–284. doi:10.1016/0022-0000(80)90009-4. ISSN 0022-0000.
10. Yoeli, Michael; Ginzburg, Abraham (1 November 1964). "On homomorphic images of transition graphs". Journal of the Franklin Institute. 278 (5): 291–296. doi:10.1016/S0016-0032(64)90583-6. ISSN 0016-0032.
11. Ginzburg, Abraham; Yoeli, Michael (1965). "Products of automata and the problem of covering". Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. 116: 253–266. doi:10.1090/S0002-9947-1965-0201228-X. ISSN 0002-9947.
12. Martin, Alain J. (18 June 1990). "Asynchronous Circuits for Token-Ring Mutual Exclusion". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
13. Ziv, A. "Theorem in the Additive Number Theory". www.semanticscholar.org. S2CID 12202924. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
14. Ginzburg, Abraham (25 June 2014). Algebraic Theory of Automata. Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-4832-2516-6.
15. "Calculus: Problems and Solutions". store.doverpublications.com. Retrieved 3 October 2020.

• Geroldinger, Alfred (2009). "Additive group theory and non-unique factorizations". In Geroldinger, Alfred; Ruzsa, Imre Z. (eds.). Combinatorial number theory and additive group theory. Advanced Courses in Mathematics CRM Barcelona. Elsholtz, C.; Freiman, G.; Hamidoune, Y. O.; Hegyvári, N.; Károlyi, G.; Nathanson, M.; Solymosi, J.; Stanchescu, Y. With a foreword by Javier Cilleruelo, Marc Noy and Oriol Serra (Coordinators of the DocCourse). Basel: Birkhäuser. pp. 1–86. ISBN 978-3-7643-8961-1. Zbl 1221.20045.
• Nathanson, Melvyn B. (1996). Additive Number Theory: Inverse Problems and the Geometry of Sumsets. Graduate Texts in Mathematics. 165. Springer-Verlag. ISBN 0-387-94655-1. Zbl 0859.11003.

External links

• [CS Founder Prof. Avraham Ginzburg Passed Away], at the Technion site.