Benjamin Weiss ( he, בנימין ווייס; born 1941) is an American-Israeli mathematician known for his contributions to

ergodic theory Ergodic theory (Greek: ' "work", ' "way") is a branch of mathematics that studies statistical properties of deterministic dynamical systems; it is the study of ergodicity. In this context, statistical properties means properties which are expres ...

topological dynamics In mathematics, topological dynamics is a branch of the theory of dynamical systems in which qualitative, asymptotic properties of dynamical systems are studied from the viewpoint of general topology. Scope The central object of study in topolo ...

probability theory Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set o ...

, game theory, and

descriptive set theory In mathematical logic, descriptive set theory (DST) is the study of certain classes of "well-behaved" subsets of the real line and other Polish spaces. As well as being one of the primary areas of research in set theory, it has applications to oth ...

Biography

Benjamin ("Benjy") Weiss was born in New York City. In 1962 he received B.A. from

Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City."About YU
on the Yeshiva Universi ...

and M.A. from the Graduate School of Science,

Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City."About YU
on the Yeshiva Universi ...

. In 1965, he received his Ph.D. from

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

under the supervision of

William Feller William "Vilim" Feller (July 7, 1906 – January 14, 1970), born Vilibald Srećko Feller, was a Croatian- American mathematician specializing in probability theory. Early life and education Feller was born in Zagreb to Ida Oemichen-Perc, a Croa ...

Academic career

Between 1965 and 1967, Weiss worked at the

IBM Research IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM Research is the largest industrial research or ...

. In 1967, he joined the faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; and since 1990 occupied the Miriam and Julius Vinik Chair in Mathematics (Emeritus since 2009). Weiss held visiting positions at

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, MSRI, and

Center. Weiss published over 180 papers in

orbit equivalence In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as a ...

probability Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an Event (probability theory), event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and ...

information theory Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. ...

, game theory,

; with notable contributions including introduction of

Markov partition A Markov partition in mathematics is a tool used in dynamical systems theory, allowing the methods of symbolic dynamics to be applied to the study of hyperbolic dynamics. By using a Markov partition, the system can be made to resemble a discret ...

s (with Roy Adler), development of ergodic theory of

amenable group In mathematics, an amenable group is a locally compact topological group ''G'' carrying a kind of averaging operation on bounded functions that is invariant under translation by group elements. The original definition, in terms of a finitely add ...

s (with Don Ornstein),

mean dimension In mathematics, the mean (topological) dimension of a topological dynamical system is a non-negative extended real number that is a measure of the complexity of the system. Mean dimension was first introduced in 1999 by Gromov. Shortly after it w ...

(with Elon Lindenstrauss), introduction of sofic subshifts and

sofic group In mathematics, a sofic group is a group whose Cayley graph is an initially subamenable graph, or equivalently a subgroup of an ultraproduct of finite-rank symmetric groups such that every two elements of the group have distance 1.Ceccherini-Silb ...

s. The

road coloring conjecture In graph theory the road coloring theorem, known previously as the road coloring conjecture, deals with synchronized instructions. The issue involves whether by using such instructions, one can reach or locate an object or destination from any ot ...

was also posed by Weiss with

Roy Adler Roy Lee Adler (February 22, 1931 – July 26, 2016) was an American mathematician. Adler earned his Ph.D. in 1961 from Yale University under the supervision of Shizuo Kakutani (''On some algebraic aspects of measure preserving transformations'' ...

. One of Weiss's students is

Elon Lindenstrauss Elon Lindenstrauss ( he, אילון לינדנשטראוס, born August 1, 1970) is an Israeli mathematician, and a winner of the 2010 Fields Medal. Since 2004, he has been a professor at Princeton University. In 2009, he was appointed to Profes ...

, a 2010 recipient of the Fields Medal.

Awards and recognition

Weiss gave an invited address at the

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the Nevanlinna Prize (to be rename ...

1974, was twice the main speaker at a Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences (1979 and 1995), gave the M.B.Porter Distinguished Lecture Series at

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a private research university in Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranked among the top universit ...

(1998). In 2000 Weiss was elected as a Foreign Honorary Member of 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, ...

. In 2006 he was awarded the

Rothschild Prize Yad Hanadiv (The Rothschild Foundation) is a Rothschild family philanthropic foundation in Israel. Goals and objectives Yad Hanadiv defines its mission as: Dedicated to creating resources for advancing Israel as a healthy, vibrant, democratic so ...

in Mathematics. In 2012 Weiss was elected a 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 ...

.List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
retrieved 2013-09-01.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weiss, Benjamin Living people Israeli mathematicians Dynamical systems theorists Princeton University alumni Academic staff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Fellows of the American Mathematical Society 1941 births

Biography

Academic career

Awards and recognition

See also

References