Bernard Epstein (10 August 1920,

Harrison, New Jersey Harrison is a town in the western part of Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. It is a suburb of the nearby city of Newark, New Jersey, and is located from New York City. As of the ...

– 30 March 2005,

Montgomery County, Maryland Montgomery County is the most populous county in the state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 1,062,061, increasing by 9.3% from 2010. The county seat and largest municipality is Rockville, although the census-design ...

) was an American mathematician and physicist who wrote several widely used textbooks on mathematics.Washington Post obituary
Bernard Epstein, College Mathematics Professor, 83
(This obituary erroneously states that Professor Epstein died at age 83 instead of the correct age 84 and also mistakenly states the number of grandchildren as 17 rather than 16 ) Epstein was the son of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Romania, Yitzkhak Aharon Epstein and Sophie-Sarah née Goldenberg, and was the first person in his family to go to college. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics and physics from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, ...

and then in 1947 a Ph.D. in applied mathematics, with thesis advisor

Maurice Heins Maurice Haskell Heins (19 November 1915, Boston – 4 June 2015) was an American mathematician, specializing in complex analysis and harmonic analysis. Heins received his bachelor's degree in 1937, his master's degree in 1939, and his Ph.D. in 194 ...

, from Brown University with thesis ''Method for the Solution of the

Dirichlet Problem In mathematics, a Dirichlet problem is the problem of finding a function which solves a specified partial differential equation (PDE) in the interior of a given region that takes prescribed values on the boundary of the region. The Dirichlet pro ...

for Certain Types of Domains''. In the early 1940s, he worked as a physicist at what is now the

National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into Outline of p ...

. During World War II, he was selected to join the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

, which produced the first atomic bombs. After the war, he worked for two years 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 ...

as a research associate, taught mathematics as an associate 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 universit ...

, Stanford University and NYU and as a professor at

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

3 April 2005, Washington Post death notice
EPSTEIN, Dr. BERNARD (Age 84)
/ref> and then spent 21 years on the faculty of the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25, ...

as a professor of mathematics until his retirement in 1984. Sabbaticals included

Office of Naval Research The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to pla ...

, London; The Technion in Haifa, Israel;

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the Flagship un ...

; and Air Force Office of Scientific Research. After retirement, he taught at

George Mason University George Mason University (George Mason, Mason, or GMU) is a public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia with an independent City of Fairfax, Virginia postal address in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. The university was orig ...

. Epstein was dissertation advisor for the following Ph.D. students: *Anne Scheerer, University of Pennsylvania, 1953 *William Trench, University of Pennsylvania, 1958 *

Jack Minker Jack Minker (4 July 1927 – 9 April 2021) was a leading authority in artificial intelligence, deductive databases, logic programming and non-monotonic reasoning. He was also an internationally recognized leader in the field of human rights of ...

, University of Pennsylvania, 1959 *Edwin Sherry, Yeshiva University, 1964 *Darrell L. Hicks, University of New Mexico, 1969 *Harvey Z. Senter, Yeshiva University Upon his death at age 84, he was survived by his wife, five children, and 16 grandchildren. His sixth child, a daughter, predeceased him. Partial Differential Equations

Selected publications

Articles

* * * with S. Bergman: * with J. Lehner: * with A. Scheerer: * with David S. Greenstein and Jack Minker: "An extremal problem with infinitely many interpolation conditions". Annals of Finnish Academy of Science (Soumalainen Tiedaekatamia Tomituksia), Series A:1 Mathematics 250/10, 1958. * with F. Haber: * * with I. J. Schoenberg: * with J. Minker: * * * with M. M. Schiffer: * * with H. Senter: * with J. R. Blum: *

Books

* * * *with Liang-shin Hahn:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Epstein, Bernard 1920 births 2005 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 20th-century American physicists American expatriates in the United Kingdom American expatriates in Israel American mathematicians American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent American people of Romanian-Jewish descent American physicists Brown University alumni Jewish American scientists Jewish physicists Manhattan Project people Mathematics writers New York University alumni People from Harrison, New Jersey University of New Mexico faculty University of Pennsylvania faculty