Melvyn B. Nathanson

Melvyn Bernard Nathanson (born October 10, 1944, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American mathematician, specializing in number theory, and a Professor of Mathematics at Lehman College and The Graduate Center (City University of New York).[1] His principal work is in additive and combinatorial number theory. He is the author of over 150 research papers in mathematics,[2] and author or editor of 20 books.[3]

Melvyn Bernard Nathanson
Born (1944-10-10) October 10, 1944
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Pennsylvania
University of Rochester
Known forAdditive number theory
AwardsFellow of the American Mathematical Society
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsLehman College and
The Graduate Center (CUNY)
ThesisDifference Operators on Sequences Over Groups (1972)
Doctoral advisorSanford L. Segal

Education

Nathanson graduated from Central High School in 1961 and from the University of Pennsylvania in 1965 with a BA in philosophy.[4] He was a graduate student in biophysics at Harvard University in 1965–66, then moved to the University of Rochester, where he received a PhD in mathematics in 1972.[5] During the academic year 1969–70 he was a visiting research student in the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics at the University of Cambridge.[4][6]

Professional life

Nathanson was on the faculty of Southern Illinois University, Carbondale from 1971 to 1981. He was Professor of Mathematics and Dean of the Graduate School of Rutgers-Newark from 1981 to 1986, and Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Lehman College (CUNY) from 1986 to 1991. He has been Professor of Mathematics at Lehman College and The Graduate Center (CUNY) since 1986. He held visiting positions at Harvard University in 1977–78, Rockefeller University in 1981–83, Tel Aviv University in Spring, 2001, and Princeton University in Fall, 2008.

In 1974–75 Nathanson was Assistant to André Weil in the School of Mathematics of the Institute for Advanced Study. Nathanson subsequently spent the academic years 1990–91 and 1999–2000, and the Fall, 2007, term at the Institute.[7] He served as President of the Association of Members of the Institute for Advanced Study (AMIAS) from 1998 to 2012.[8]

In 1972–73 Nathanson became the first American mathematician to receive an IREX fellowship to spend a year in the former USSR, where he worked with I. M. Gel'fand at Moscow State University.[9] In 1977 the National Academy of Sciences selected him to spend another year in Moscow on its exchange agreement with the USSR Academy of Sciences. An international brouhaha ensued when the Soviet government refused to allow him to re-enter the country.[9][10] He spent the academic year 1977–78 in the mathematics department at Harvard University, where he also worked in the Program for Science and International Affairs, and contributed to the book Nuclear Nonproliferation: The Spent Fuel Problem.[11] Nathanson is the author/editor/translator of several books and articles on Soviet art and politics,[12] including Komar/Melamid: Two Soviet Dissident Artists,[13] and Grigori Freiman, It Seems I am a Jew: A Samizdat Essay on Anti-Semitism in Soviet Mathematics,[14] both published by Southern Illinois University Press.

Nathanson was a frequent collaborator with Paul Erdős, with whom he wrote 19 papers in number theory.[2][15] He also organizes the Workshop on Combinatorial and Additive Number Theory, which has been held annually at the Graduate Center, CUNY since 2003.[16] Nathanson's essays on political and social issues related to science have appeared in The New York Times,[17] The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,[18] The Mathematical Intelligencer,[19] Notices of the American Mathematical Society,[20] and other publications.

He was elected to the 2018 class of fellows of the American Mathematical Society.[21]

Personal life

Nathanson is married to Marjorie Frankel Nathanson, Director of the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, New Jersey.[22] They have two children: Alex, a video artist[23] with a residency at the Flux Factory in Queens,[24] and Rebecca, a writer on political and social issues who lives in Brooklyn.[25]

Selected publications

Books
  • Nathanson, Melvyn B. (1996). Additive Number Theory The Classical Bases. Graduate Texts in Mathematics. 164 (1st ed.). Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-0-387-94656-6.
  • Nathanson, Melvyn B. (1996). Additive Number Theory: Inverse Problems and the Geometry of Sumsets. Graduate Texts in Mathematics. 165 (1st ed.). Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-0-387-94655-9.
  • Nathanson, Melvyn B. (2000). Elementary Methods in Number Theory. Graduate Texts in Mathematics. 195 (1st ed.). Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-0-387-98912-9.

Papers

Nathanson's recent mathematical work is available on the arXiv. Some of his most significant works include:

  • Pitici, Mircea, ed. (2011). "Desperately Seeking Mathematical Proof". The Best Writing on Mathematics 2010. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-14841-0.
  • Pitici, Mircea, ed. (2012). "One, Two, Many: Individuality and Collectivity in Mathematics". The Best Writing on Mathematics 2011. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-15315-5. JSTOR j.ctt7pgb6.
  • Pitici, Mircea, ed. (2020). "The Erdős Paradox". The Best Writing on Mathematics 2019. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-19867-5. JSTOR j.ctvggx33b.

See also

References
  1. "Melvyn B. Nathanson at Lehman College". Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  2. "List of published papers by Melvyn B. Nathanson" (PDF). Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  3. "List of published books by Melvyn B. Nathanson" (PDF). Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  4. "Melvyn B. Nathanson at the Institute for Advanced Study". Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  5. Melvyn B. Nathanson at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  6. Chudnovsky, David; Chudnovsky, Gregory, eds. (2010). Additive Number Theory: Festschrift In Honor of the Sixtieth Birthday of Melvyn B. Nathanson. Springer. ISBN 978-0-387-37029-3.
  7. "Melvyn B. Nathanson at the Institute for Advanced Study". Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  8. "Board of Trustees, Institute for Advanced Study". Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  9. Nathanson, Melvyn B. (2014). "An American Mathematician in Moscow, or How I Destroyed the Soviet Union" (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society. 61 (2): 186–189. arXiv:1408.3872. doi:10.1090/noti1076. S2CID 119147511. Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  10. Anderson, Raymond H. (October 3, 1977). "U.S. Scientist Denied a Soviet Visa After Acceptance in Study Program". The New York Times. Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  11. Harvard University Nuclear Nonproliferation Study Group (1979). Nuclear Nonproliferation: The Spent Fuel Problem. Pergamon policy studies on energy and environment. Pergamon Press. ISBN 978-0-080-23887-6.
  12. Hechinger, Fred (December 29, 1981). "About Education". The New York Times. Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  13. Nathanson, Melvyn B., ed. (1979). Komar/Melamid: Two Soviet Dissident Artists. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale. ISBN 978-0-809-30887-3.
  14. Freiman, Grigori (1980). It Seems I am a Jew: A Samizdat Essay on Anti-Semitism in Soviet Mathematics. Translated from the Russian and with an introduction by Melvyn B. Nathanson and appendices by Melvyn B. Nathanson and Andrei Sakharov, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale. ISBN 978-0-809-30962-7.
  15. "List of published papers by Paul Erdős". Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  16. "Combinatorial and Additive Number Theory Conference". Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  17. Nathanson, Melvyn B. (November 15, 1981). "It Takes Time and Money to Grow Nobel Laureates". The New York Times. Retrieved August 21, 2014.
  18. Nathanson, Melvyn B. (1985). "Soviet reactors to open for international inspection". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 2 (10): 32–33. doi:10.1080/00963402.1985.11455980. Retrieved August 21, 2014.
  19. Nathanson, Melvyn B. (2010). "One, Two, Many: Individuality and Collectivity in Mathematics". The Mathematical Intelligencer. 33 (1): 5–8. doi:10.1007/s00283-010-9172-5. S2CID 120190577.
  20. Nathanson, Melvyn B. (2008). "Desperately Seeking Mathematical Truth" (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society. 55 (7): 773. Retrieved August 21, 2014.
  21. 2018 Class of the Fellows of the AMS, American Mathematical Society, retrieved November 3, 2017
  22. "Hunterdon Art Museum". Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  23. "Alex Nathanson's webpage". Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  24. "Alex Nathanson at the Flux Factory". Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  25. "Rebecca Nathanson's webpage". Retrieved August 15, 2020.
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