Gabriel Stolzenberg (Brooklyn, 1937 - Watertown, Massachusetts, 2019) was an American

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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

who taught at various academic institutions.

Early years and education

Stolzenberg was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

to Aba Stolzenberg (1905-1966), a

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

poet, and Bluma aka Florence Stolzenberg. His father, Aba, and other Yiddish artists would often gather around poet Zishe Landau. His elder sister, Ethel, participated in a

social club A social club or social organization may be a group of people or the place where they meet, generally formed around a common interest, occupation or activity with in an organizational association known as a Club (organization), club. Exampl ...

created in 1938 by young Jewish girls in Crown Heights, called Faithful Friends Forever Club. She went on to receive a Ph.D. in

Biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...

from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

, while, later, she and her husband, Irwin Tessman, were members of the

biological Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution of ...

sciences faculty at

Purdue Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donat ...

. Stolzenberg attended

Stuyvesant High School Stuyvesant High School ( ) is a co-ed, State school, public, college-preparatory, Specialized high schools in New York City, specialized high school in Manhattan, New York City. The school, commonly called "Stuy" ( ) by its students, faculty, a ...

and then, at the age of sixteen, went to

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

where he joined a

kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

for one year. Returning to the States, he entered

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

on a

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...

scholarship A scholarship is a form of Student financial aid, financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, Multiculturalism, diversity and inclusion, athleti ...

to study

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

. He graduated in 1958 and went on to receive his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in Mathematics from the

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 ...

in 1961.

Teaching

Stolzewnberg was

Benjamin Peirce Benjamin Peirce (; April 4, 1809 – October 6, 1880) was an American mathematician who taught at Harvard University for approximately 50 years. He made contributions to celestial mechanics, statistics, number theory, algebra, and the philoso ...

Instructor at

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

, and also taught at

Brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing and painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors Orange (colour), orange and black. In the ...

and various northeastern institutions, such as

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...

, having also held visiting positions at

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California *George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer to ...

and in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. His research field included the theory of

function Function or functionality may refer to: Computing * Function key, a type of key on computer keyboards * Function model, a structured representation of processes in a system * Function object or functor or functionoid, a concept of object-orie ...

s with several

complex variable Complex analysis, traditionally known as the theory of functions of a complex variable, is the branch of mathematical analysis that investigates functions of complex numbers. It is helpful in many branches of mathematics, including algebraic g ...

s and

Banach algebras In mathematics, especially functional analysis, a Banach algebra, named after Stefan Banach, is an associative algebra A over the real or complex numbers (or over a non-Archimedean complete normed field) that at the same time is also a Banach sp ...

. He published primarily in the ''

Annals of Mathematics The ''Annals of Mathematics'' is a mathematical journal published every two months by Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study. History The journal was established as ''The Analyst'' in 1874 and with Joel E. Hendricks as t ...

'' and the ''

Acta Mathematica ''Acta Mathematica'' is a peer-reviewed open-access scientific journal covering research in all fields of mathematics. According to Cédric Villani, this journal is "considered by many to be the most prestigious of all mathematical research journ ...

''.

Philosopher of science

Stolzenberg, influenced by the work of

Errett Bishop Errett Albert Bishop (July 14, 1928 – April 14, 1983) was an American mathematician known for his work on analysis. He is best known for developing constructive analysis in his 1967 ''Foundations of Constructive Analysis'', where he proved mos ...

, was a constructivist in the philosophy of mathematics, as well as in

science education Science education is the teaching and learning of science to school children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education includes work in science content, science process (the scientific method), some ...

. He was an active participant in the so-called "

science wars In the philosophy of science, the science wars were a series of scholarly and public discussions in the 1990s over the social place of science in making authoritative claims about the world. Encyclopedia.com, citing the ''Encyclopedia of Science ...

",Stolzenberg has contributed to the talk page of the Science Wars article in Wikipedia. defending

post-modernism Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting the wor ...

and constructivism against the positions held by scientists and philosophers, as well as against accusations of

relativism Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to absolute objectivity within a particular domain and assert that valuations in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assess ...

. Solzenberg engaged publicly and for many years in a dialogue with opponents of the postmodernist approach to sciences and of the use of concepts of physics, mathematics, or chemistry in philosophy and the social sciences, attracting commentary across both positive and social sciences and drawing wider attention to these issues.

Selected works

Articles

Books

* *

Private life

Stolzenberg married Judith Levine (b. 1938)Judith Levine
/ref> soon after graduating from Columbia in 1958. He met his second wife, mathematician

Nancy Kopell Nancy Jane Kopell (born November 8, 1942, New York City) is an American mathematician and professor at Boston University. She is co-director of the Center for Computational Neuroscience and Neural Technology (CompNet). She organized and directs th ...

(b.1942), while they were both serving at the faculty of

. Stolzenberg and Levine had two children, Nomi and Daniel Stolzenberg. Nomi joined the

USC Gould School of Law The University of Southern California Gould School of Law located in Los Angeles, California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Or ...

faculty in 1988, with her research focusing mainly on the relationship of law with religion,

liberalism Liberalism is a Political philosophy, political and moral philosophy based on the Individual rights, rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law. ...

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...

, and literature. Daniel went on to receive a PhD in

History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

from

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

and serve as a

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

of knowledge in

UC Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

, specializing in early modern Europe. In 2014, Daniel received the Howard R. Marraro Prize for the best book on

Italian History Italy has been inhabited by humans Prehistoric Italy, since the Paleolithic. During antiquity, there were many ancient peoples of Italy, peoples in the Italian peninsula, including Etruscan civilization, Etruscans, Latins, Samnites, Umbri, Cisal ...

published that year. He mainly researches the

history of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient history, ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural science, natural, social science, social, and formal science, formal. Pr ...

and

from the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

to the

Enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...

. Gabriel Stolzenberg and

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

Cormac McCarthy Cormac McCarthy (born Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr.; July 20, 1933 – June 13, 2023) was an American author who wrote twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays, and three short stories, spanning the Western, post-apocalyptic, and Southern Got ...

were close friends.

Death

Stolzenberg died on 19 November 2019, at the age of 82, while being treated for a

neurological disorder Neurological disorders represent a complex array of medical conditions that fundamentally disrupt the functioning of the nervous system. These disorders affect the brain, spinal cord, and nerve networks, presenting unique diagnosis, treatment, and ...

Watertown, Massachusetts Watertown is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, part of Greater Boston. The population was 35,329 in the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Its neighborhoods include Bemis, Coolidge Square, East Watertown, Watertown Sq ...

Notes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Stolzenberg, Gabriel 1937 births 2019 deaths American algebraists American mathematicians Jewish American scientists Harvard University Department of Mathematics faculty Scientists from Brooklyn