Albert W. Tucker

Albert William Tucker ( born November 28, 1905 in Ontario, Canada, † January 25, 1995 in Hightown, New Jersey ) was a Canadian-born American mathematician who made major contributions to topology, game theory and linear programming delivered.

Life

He studied mathematics at the University of Toronto (Bachelor 's degree in 1928, master's degree 1929) and Princeton University, where he. Doctorate in 1932 at Solomon Lefschetz ( An abstract approach to manifolds ) From 1932 to 1933 he was a National Research Fellow at Harvard University and at the University of Chicago. In 1933, he returned to Princeton University, was there in 1934 Assistant Professor, Associate Professor in 1938. During World War II he taught in special university programs for the training of members of the army and navy, and was conducting in a research group in Princeton to ballistics and fire control systems ( Fire Control Research Group). In 1946, he received a full professor at Princeton. From 1953 he was there Baldwin Dod Professor and was in the same year also the chairman of the mathematics faculty at Princeton. In 1974 he became Professor Emeritus. He has been a visiting professor at Stanford University (1949-1950), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Haverford College, the Rockefeller Institute and a Fulbright lecturer in Australia (1956 ) and Europe ( and 1959 at the OECD ).

At Princeton University, he established a program for linear programming and game theory, which ran until 1972 and next to the Rand Corporation was the largest such project in the United States. In 1950 he initiated the research on the Prisoner's Dilemma, one of the most well-known paradoxes of game theory. He suggested the paradox as an example of a non-zero -sum game before a presentation for psychologists at Stanford University on game theory.

At the University he founded the publication series Annals of Mathematical Studies, Princeton University Press, in which he also published several books about game theory and co-authored.

Tucker also called for the improvement of mathematics education in high schools and was in several relevant national committees of the United States.

Tucker was honorary doctorate from Dartmouth College ( 1961). He received the 1968 Distinguished Service Award from the Mathematical Association of America ( MAA), whose president he was also at times, and in 1980 the von Neumann Theory Prize from the Operations Research Society of America. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science ( AAAS ), the Vice President, he was at times. He was also in the Council of the American Mathematical Society. In 1980 he was awarded the John von Neumann Theory Prize.

His doctoral counts Marvin Minsky ( with a thesis on neural networks ), David Gale and John F. Nash, the latter. With a thesis on game theory in 1950, which later earned him the Nobel Prize

Tucker was married and had three children.

Writings

• With Evar Nehring: Linear Programs and related problems, Academic Press 1993
• HW Kuhn (Editor): Contributions to the theory of games, Annals of Mathematical Studies 1950
• HW Kuhn (Editor): Linear inequalities and related systems, Annals of Mathematical Studies 1956
• With Allan Gewirtz, Harry Sitomer: Constructive linear algebra, Englewood Cliffs 1974