Robert Duncan Luce (May 16, 1925 – August 11, 2012) was an American mathematician and social scientist, and one of the most preeminent figures in the field of mathematical psychology. At the end of his life, he held the position of Distinguished Research Professor of Cognitive Science at the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...

Education and career

Luce received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree in

Aeronautical Engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is sim ...

from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1945, and PhD in Mathematics from the same university in 1950 under Irvin S. Cohen with thesis ''On Semigroups''. He began his professorial career at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1954, where he was an assistant professor in mathematical statistics and sociology. Following a lecturership at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

from 1957 to 1959, he became a professor at the

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 ...

in 1959, and was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Professorship of Psychology in 1968. After visiting the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...

beginning in 1969, he joined the UC Irvine faculty in 1972, but returned to Harvard in 1976 as Alfred North Whitehead Professor of Psychology and then later as Victor S. Thomas Professor of Psychology. In 1988 Luce rejoined the UC Irvine faculty as Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Sciences and (from 1988 to 1998) director of UCI's Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences.

Contributions

Contributions for which Luce is known include formulating

Luce's choice axiom In probability theory, Luce's choice axiom, formulated by R. Duncan Luce (1959), states that the probability of selecting one item over another from a pool of many items is not affected by the presence or absence of other items in the pool. Selecti ...

formalizing the principle that additional options should not affect the probability of selecting one item over another, defining

semiorder In order theory, a branch of mathematics, a semiorder is a type of ordering for items with numerical scores, where items with widely differing scores are compared by their scores and where scores within a given margin of error are deemed incompar ...

s, introducing

graph-theoretic In mathematics, graph theory is the study of ''graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of '' vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'') which are conne ...

methods into the social sciences, and coining the term "

clique A clique ( AusE, CanE, or ), in the social sciences, is a group of individuals who interact with one another and share similar interests. Interacting with cliques is part of normative social development regardless of gender, ethnicity, or popular ...

" for a complete subgraph in graph theory.

Recognition

In 1966, Luce was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

. Luce was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1972 for his work on fundamental measurement, utility theory, global psychophysics, and mathematical behavioral sciences. He received the 2003

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social scienc ...

in behavioral and social science for his contributions to the field of mathematical psychology. In 2004, he was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

Books by Luce

* Paperback reprint, Dover, New York * * *

References

External links

Archival collections

Guide to the R. Duncan Luce Papers.
Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.

Other

Science journal's summary of his work.

Biography of R. Duncan Luce
from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences {{DEFAULTSORT:Luce, R. Duncan 1925 births 2012 deaths American social scientists American cognitive scientists Game theorists Mathematical psychologists National Medal of Science laureates Fellows of the Econometric Society Fellows of the Society of Experimental Psychologists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences University of California, Irvine faculty MIT School of Engineering alumni Columbia University faculty Harvard University faculty University of Pennsylvania faculty Members of the American Philosophical Society