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Michael Ira Shub (born August 17, 1943) is an American
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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...
who has done research into
dynamical systems In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a Function (mathematics), function describes the time dependence of a Point (geometry), point in an ambient space, such as in a parametric curve. Examples include the mathematical models ...
and the complexity of
real number In mathematics, a real number is a number that can be used to measure a continuous one- dimensional quantity such as a duration or temperature. Here, ''continuous'' means that pairs of values can have arbitrarily small differences. Every re ...
algorithms.


Career


1967: Ph.D. and early career

In 1967, Shub obtained his Ph.D. degree at the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
with a thesis entitled ''Endomorphisms of Compact Differentiable Manifolds''. In his Ph.D. thesis, he introduced the notion of expanding maps, which gave the first examples of structurally stable strange attractors. His advisor was
Stephen Smale Stephen Smale (born July 15, 1930) is an American mathematician, known for his research in topology, dynamical systems and mathematical economics. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1966 and spent more than three decades on the mathematics faculty ...
. From 1967 to 1985, he worked at
Brandeis University Brandeis University () is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located within the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational university, Bra ...
, the
University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of C ...
and the Queens College at the City University of New York. In 1974, he proposed the Entropy Conjecture, an open problem in dynamical systems, which was proved by Yosef Yomdin for C^\infty mappings in 1987.


1985–2004: IBM research

From 1985 to 2004, he joined
IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
's Thomas J. Watson Research Center. In 1987, Shub published his book ''Global Stability of Dynamical Systems'', which is often used as a reference in introductory and advanced books on the subject of dynamical systems. In 1993, Shub and Stephen Smale initiated a rigorous analysis of
homotopy In topology, two continuous functions from one topological space to another are called homotopic (from and ) if one can be "continuously deformed" into the other, such a deformation being called a homotopy ( ; ) between the two functions. ...
-based algorithms for solving systems of nonlinear algebraic equations, which has inspired much of the work in that area during the last two decades. From 1995 to 1997, Shub was the founding chair of the Society for the Foundations of Computational Mathematics. In 2001, Shub became a founding editor of their journal, ''Foundations of Computational Mathematics''.


1986: Blum Blum Shub

Shub, along with coauthors Lenore and Manuel Blum, described a simple, unpredictable, secure
random number generator Random number generation is a process by which, often by means of a random number generator (RNG), a sequence of numbers or symbols is generated that cannot be reasonably predicted better than by random chance. This means that the particular ou ...
(see Blum Blum Shub). This random generator is useful from theoretical and practical perspectives.


1989: Blum–Shub–Smale machine

In 1989, he proposed with Lenore Blum and Stephen Smale the notion of Blum–Shub–Smale machine, an alternative to the classical Turing model of computation. Their model is used to analyse the computability of functions.


2004–2010: Post-IBM

From 2004 to 2010, he worked at the
University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...
. After 2010, he became a researcher at the
University of Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires (, UBA) is a public university, public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the second-oldest university in the country, and the largest university of the country by enrollment. Established in 1821 ...
and at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Since 2016, he has been Martin and Michele Cohen Professor and Chair of the Mathematics Department at
City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a Public university, public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York ...
.


Awards and recognition

*1972: Fellow of Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. *2000: Fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...
. *2012: A conference, ''From Dynamics to Complexity'', was organized at the Fields Institute in Toronto celebrating his work. *2015: Fellow of the
American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...
"for contributions to smooth dynamics and to complexity theory." * 2016: Fulbright Specialist.


Selected publications

* * * * * * *


References


External links


Personal website
at the City College of New York. {{DEFAULTSORT:Shub, Michael Ira 1943 births Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians University of California, Berkeley alumni Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Brandeis University faculty CUNY Graduate Center faculty City College of New York faculty University of California, Santa Cruz faculty Academic staff of the University of Toronto Academic staff of the University of Buenos Aires IBM Research computer scientists Queens College, City University of New York faculty