Israel Nathan Herstein (March 28, 1923 – February 9, 1988) was a

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

, appointed as professor at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

in 1951. He worked on a variety of areas of

algebra Algebra () is one of the broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathematics. Elementary ...

, including

ring theory In algebra, ring theory is the study of rings—algebraic structures in which addition and multiplication are defined and have similar properties to those operations defined for the integers. Ring theory studies the structure of rings, their r ...

, with over 100 research papers and over a dozen books.

Education and career

Herstein was born in Lublin,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, in 1923. His family emigrated to Canada in 1926, and he grew up in a harsh and underprivileged environment where, according to him, "you either became a

gangster A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from '' mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...

or a

college professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

." During his school years he played football,

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

, and

pool Pool may refer to: Water pool * Swimming pool, usually an artificial structure containing a large body of water intended for swimming * Reflecting pool, a shallow pool designed to reflect a structure and its surroundings * Tide pool, a rocky po ...

. He also worked as a

steeplejack A steeplejack is a craftsman who scales buildings, chimneys, and church steeples to carry out repairs or maintenance. Steeplejacks erect ladders on church spires, industrial chimneys, cooling towers, bell towers, clock towers, or any other hi ...

and as a barker at a fair. He received his B.S. degree from the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba.University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...

. He received his

Ph.D A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

from

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...

in 1948. His advisor was Max Zorn. He held positions at the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. T ...

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, and

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

before permanently settling at the University of Chicago in 1962. He was a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the a ...

for the academic year 1960–1961. He is known for his lucid style of writing, as exemplified by his ''Topics in Algebra'', an undergraduate introduction to

abstract algebra In mathematics, more specifically algebra, abstract algebra or modern algebra is the study of algebraic structures. Algebraic structures include group (mathematics), groups, ring (mathematics), rings, field (mathematics), fields, module (mathe ...

that was first published in 1964, with a second edition in 1975. A more advanced text is his ''Noncommutative Rings'' in the

Carus Mathematical Monographs The ''Carus Mathematical Monographs'' is a monograph series published by the Mathematical Association of America.Drake, Miriam A. (2003). ''Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science: Lib-Pub.'' CRC Press, Books in this series are intended to ...

series. His primary interest was in noncommutative ring theory, but he also wrote papers on finite groups,

linear algebra Linear algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning linear equations such as: :a_1x_1+\cdots +a_nx_n=b, linear maps such as: :(x_1, \ldots, x_n) \mapsto a_1x_1+\cdots +a_nx_n, and their representations in vector spaces and through matrices ...

, and mathematical economics. He had 30 Ph.D. students, traveled and lectured widely, and spoke Italian, Hebrew, Polish, and Portuguese. He died from cancer in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

, in 1988. His doctoral students include

Miriam Cohen Miriam Cohen (born October 1941) is an Israeli mathematician and a professor in the Department of Mathematics at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev whose main areas of research are Hopf algebras, quantum groups and Noncommutative rings. Biograph ...

, Wallace S. Martindale,

Susan Montgomery M. Susan Montgomery (born 2 April 1943 in Lansing, MI) is a distinguished American mathematician whose current research interests concern noncommutative algebras: in particular, Hopf algebras, their structure and representations, and their actio ...

Karen Parshall Karen Hunger Parshall (born 1955, Virginia; ''née'' Karen Virginia Hunger) is an American historian of mathematics. She is the Commonwealth Professor of History and Mathematics at the University of Virginia with a joint appointment in the Corco ...

and

Claudio Procesi Claudio Procesi (born 31 March 1941 in Rome) is an Italian mathematician, known for works in algebra and representation theory. Career Procesi studied at the Sapienza University of Rome, where he received his degree (Laurea) in 1963. In 1966 he ...

Selected publications

* * *

Notes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Herstein, Israel Nathan 1923 births 1988 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians Algebraists Indiana University alumni University of Chicago faculty Ohio State University faculty Polish emigrants to Canada Canadian emigrants to the United States University of Kansas faculty University of Pennsylvania faculty Mathematicians at the University of Pennsylvania Cornell University faculty University of Manitoba alumni