Albert "Tommy" Wilansky (13 September 1921,
St. John's, Newfoundland
St. John's is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland. The city spans and is the easternmost city in North Amer ...
– 3 July 2017,
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Bethlehem is a city in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, Northampton and Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, Lehigh counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Bethle ...
) was a Canadian-American mathematician, known for introducing
Smith number
In number theory, a Smith number is a composite number for which, in a given number base, the sum of its digits is equal to the sum of the digits in its prime factorization in the same base. In the case of numbers that are not square-free, the ...
s.
Biography
Wilansky was educated as an undergraduate at
Dalhousie University
Dalhousie University (commonly known as Dal) is a large public research university in Nova Scotia, Canada, with three campuses in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Halifax, a fourth in Bible Hill, Nova Scotia, Bible Hill, and a second medical school campus ...
, where he received an M.A. in mathematics in 1944. From 1944 to 1947 he was a graduate student at Brown University.
[ (See personal profile of Albert Wilansky in Chapter 6.)] In 1947 he received his Ph.D. with advisor
Clarence Raymond Adams and dissertation ''An application of Banach linear functionals to the theory of summability''.
From 1948 until his official retirement in 1992, Wilansky was a faculty member of the mathematics department of
Lehigh University
Lehigh University (LU), in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States, is a private university, private research university. The university was established in 1865 by businessman Asa Packer. Lehigh University's undergraduate programs have been mixed ...
.
[
Wilansky did research in analysis, specializing in summability theory, linear topological spaces, Banach algebras, and functional analysis.][ He was the author of several books and the author or co-author of more than 80 articles. He lectured at over 50 different universities.][ In 1969 he received the ]Mathematical Association of America
The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university
A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary edu ...
's Lester R. Ford Award
''The American Mathematical Monthly'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of mathematics. It was established by Benjamin Finkel in 1894 and is published by Taylor & Francis on behalf of the Mathematical Association of America. It is an expositor ...
for his 1968 article ''Spectral Decomposition of Matrices for High School Students''. (The 1969 award was also given individually to 5 other mathematicians.)
Wilansky was married to his first wife from 1947 until her death in 1969. They had two daughters. He had three step-daughters from his second marriage.
Selected publications
Articles
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Books
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilansky, Albert
1921 births
2017 deaths
20th-century American mathematicians
21st-century American mathematicians
Functional analysts
Mathematical analysts
Dalhousie University alumni
Brown University alumni
Lehigh University faculty
Canadian emigrants to the United States