David Gale

David Gale ( born December 13, 1921 in New York City; † March 7, 2008 in Berkeley ) was an American mathematician and economist. He was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Career

Gale was educated at Swarthmore College (Bachelor 1943), during the Second World War at the MIT Radiation Laboratory and then studied at the University of Michigan ( Master's degree in 1947 ) and at Princeton University, where he received his doctorate in 1949 at Albert William Tucker ( Solutions of finite two person games). Then he taught 1950-1965 at Brown University before moving to Berkeley, where he was professor of mathematics, operations research and economics. In 1957/58 he was at the Rand Corporation.

Gale made ​​key contributions to linear optimization, in particular his 1960 published work, The Theory of Linear Economic Models established itself as a standard work. He also dealt with game theory, geometry and combinatorics of convex sets.

He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. For his research, he has received awards such as the John von Neumann Theory Prize or the Pirelli International Award. He was a Fulbright Research Scholar ( 1953/54, Denmark ) and Guggenheim Fellow ( 1962/63 at Osaka University as a visiting professor ). In 1968/69 he was a Senior Fellow of the National Science Foundation at the University of Copenhagen.

Gale lived in Berkeley and in Paris with his partner Sandra Gilbert. He had three daughters from his first marriage ( with Julie B. Skeby, Marriage 1954 divorce 1974), and two grandchildren.

1991 to 1997 he published the column on Mathematical entertainment in the Mathematical Intelligencer.