Aviezri Siegmund Fraenkel ( he, אביעזרי פרנקל) (born June 7, 1929) is an Israeli

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 ...

who has made contributions to

combinatorial game theory Combinatorial game theory is a branch of mathematics and theoretical computer science that typically studies sequential games with perfect information. Study has been largely confined to two-player games that have a ''position'' that the player ...

Biography

Aviezri Siegmund Fraenkel was born in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, Germany, to a Jewish family, which then moved to Switzerland soon thereafter. In 1939 his family moved once more, to

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

. Fraenkel is married to Shaula and father of six. One of his grandchildren, Yaacov Naftali Fraenkel, was kidnapped and murdered by Hamas members in June 2014. In 2018, in respect for his life's work, Fraenkel was given the highly regarded honor to light one of twelve torches—one for each of Twelve Tribes—at the State of Israel's televised opening ceremony on Har Herzl, Jerusalem, in celebration of Israel's 70th Independence Day (which in 2018, fell on Wednesday evening April 18 – Thursday evening April 19).

Academic career

Fraenkel 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 ...

in 1961 from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...

. He was a recipient of the 2005

Euler Medal The Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications (ICA) is an international scientific organization formed in 1990 to increase the visibility and influence of the combinatorial community. In pursuit of this goal, the ICA sponsors conferences, ...

, together with Ralph Faudree. On December 5, 2006, he received the "WEIZAC Medal" from the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operat ...

, as a member of the team that built the WEIZAC, one of the first computers in the world and the first computer built in Israel. Fraenkel was the founder of the Bar Ilan Responsa Project, serving as its initial director (1963–74), which received the Israel Prize in 2007. His research also delves into Analysis of algorithms, computational complexity, as it is important to study the complexity of algorithms which solve games.

References

External links

Biography by Shaula Fraenkel

Personal Homepage

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120813131518/http://cms.education.gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/PrasIsrael/Tashsaz/HashutProject/cv.htm The official Responsa Project CV from the Israel Prize committee (in Hebrew)] {{DEFAULTSORT:Fraenkel, Aviezri 1929 births Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to Mandatory Palestine Haganah members Living people 20th-century Israeli mathematicians Combinatorial game theorists University of California, Los Angeles alumni Technion – Israel Institute of Technology alumni