Andrew Browder (January 8, 1931 – March 24, 2019) was an American mathematician at

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

Background

Andrew Browder was born in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, Russia, where his father Earl Browder, an American communist from Kansas, United States, was living and working for a period. His mother was Raissa Berkmann, a Russian Jewish woman from St. Petersburg. His brothers were

Felix Browder Felix Earl Browder (; July 31, 1927 – December 10, 2016) was an American mathematician known for his work in nonlinear functional analysis. He received the National Medal of Science in 1999 and was President of the American Mathematical Socie ...

(older), also born in Moscow, and William Browder (younger). All three brothers had careers in mathematics. Their father returned to the United States in the early 1930s, bringing his family with him. The senior Browder became head of the

Communist Party USA The Communist Party USA (CPUSA), officially the Communist Party of the United States of America, also referred to as the American Communist Party mainly during the 20th century, is a communist party in the United States. It was established ...

. He ran for US president in 1936 and 1940.

Career

Browder traced his interest in mathematics to 1955 when he was a private at

Fort Dix Fort Dix, the common name for the Army Support Activity (ASA) located at Joint Base McGuire–Dix–Lakehurst, is a United States Army post. It is located south-southeast of Trenton, New Jersey. Fort Dix is under the jurisdiction of the Air Fo ...

and

Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...

offered early release to servicemen entering

graduate school Postgraduate education, graduate education, or graduate school consists of academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications usually pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate (bachel ...

. He studied at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

. For two years he was a Miller Fellow at

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 ...

and also studied at Aarhus, Denmark. As for teaching, "I taught well over one hundred courses, some of which I found interesting and enjoyable, some pretty depressing, most somewhere in between. The students had parallel experiences."

Personal life and death

Browder married and had three children including Laura Browder, professor of American Studies at the

University of Richmond The University of Richmond (UR or U of R) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Richmond, Virginia, United States. It is a primarily undergraduate, residential institution with approxim ...

. The analytic nature of the game of

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

enthralled Browder early on: "My own main sport was always chess. My father taught me the game when I was six, a friend of the family gave me a chess book when I was eleven or twelve, and after that I was hooked." Andrew Browder died age 88 on March 24, 2019.

Works

In 1969 Browder published ''Introduction to Function Algebras''. "The author develops much of the general theory of function algebras and then applies it in the last two chapters to the theory of rational approximation in the plane, and to finding analytic structure in the spectrum of a

Dirichlet algebra In mathematics, a Dirichlet algebra is a particular type of algebra associated to a compact Hausdorff space ''X''. It is a closed subalgebra of ''C''(''X''), the uniform algebra of bounded continuous functions on ''X'', whose real parts are dense ...

." In 1996 he published an upper-level

textbook A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions, but also of learners ( ...

''Mathematical Analysis'' for well-motivated students having a background of

calculus Calculus is the mathematics, mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithmetic operations. Originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the ...

and

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 matrix (mathemat ...

. Four topics are encompassed by the text: single-variable theory,

topology Topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is the branch of mathematics concerned with the properties of a Mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformat ...

and

function space In mathematics, a function space is a set of functions between two fixed sets. Often, the domain and/or codomain will have additional structure which is inherited by the function space. For example, the set of functions from any set into a ve ...

measure theory In mathematics, the concept of a measure is a generalization and formalization of geometrical measures (length, area, volume) and other common notions, such as magnitude (mathematics), magnitude, mass, and probability of events. These seemingl ...

and

Lebesgue integration In mathematics, the integral of a non-negative function of a single variable can be regarded, in the simplest case, as the area between the graph of that function and the axis. The Lebesgue integral, named after French mathematician Henri L ...

, and functions of several variables. In 2000 Browder published his article "Topology in the Complex Plane", which described the

Brouwer fixed point theorem Brouwer's fixed-point theorem is a fixed-point theorem in topology, named after L. E. J. (Bertus) Brouwer. It states that for any continuous function f mapping a nonempty compact convex set to itself, there is a point x_0 such that f(x_0)=x_0. Th ...

, the

Jordan curve theorem In topology, the Jordan curve theorem (JCT), formulated by Camille Jordan in 1887, asserts that every ''Jordan curve'' (a plane simple closed curve) divides the plane into an "interior" region Boundary (topology), bounded by the curve (not to be ...

, and Alexander duality. With Hiroshi Yamaguchi, Browder wrote "A variation formula for harmonic modules and its application to several complex variables".A. Browder & Hiroshi Yamaguchi (1994
A variation formula for harmonic modules and its application to several complex variables
'' Hiroshima Mathematical Journal'' 24(3): 493–520 via

Project Euclid Project Euclid is a collaborative partnership between Cornell University Library and Duke University Press which seeks to advance scholarly communication in theoretical and applied mathematics and statistics through partnerships with independent a ...

References

External sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Browder, Andrew 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians 1931 births 2019 deaths American mathematical analysts

Andrew Andrew is the English form of the given name, common in many countries. The word is derived from the , ''Andreas'', itself related to ''aner/andros'', "man" (as opposed to "woman"), thus meaning "manly" and, as consequence, "brave", "strong", "c ...

American people of Russian-Jewish descent American textbook writers Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Brown University faculty