Guido Fubini (19 January 1879 – 6 June 1943) was an Italian
mathematician, known for
Fubini's theorem and the
Fubini–Study metric.
Life
Born in
Venice, he was steered towards mathematics at an early age by his teachers and his father, who was himself a teacher of mathematics. In 1896 he entered the
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, where he studied
differential geometry
Differential geometry is a Mathematics, mathematical discipline that studies the geometry of smooth shapes and smooth spaces, otherwise known as smooth manifolds. It uses the techniques of Calculus, single variable calculus, vector calculus, lin ...
under
Ulisse Dini and
Luigi Bianchi. His 1900 doctoral thesis was about
Clifford's parallelism in
elliptic spaces.
[G. Fubini (1900) D.H. Delphenich translato]
Clifford Parallelism in Elliptic Spaces
Laurea thesis, Pisa.
After earning his doctorate, he took up a series of professorships. In 1901 he began teaching at the
University of Catania in
Sicily
Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...
; shortly afterwards he moved to the
University of Genoa; and in 1908 he moved to the
Politecnico in
Turin
Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...
and then the
University of Turin, where he stayed for a few decades.
During this time his research focused primarily on topics in
mathematical analysis, especially
differential equations,
functional analysis
Functional analysis is a branch of mathematical analysis, the core of which is formed by the study of vector spaces endowed with some kind of limit-related structure (for example, Inner product space#Definition, inner product, Norm (mathematics ...
, and
complex analysis; but he also studied the
calculus of variations,
group theory,
non-Euclidean geometry, and
projective geometry, among other topics. With the outbreak of
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, he shifted his work towards more applied topics, studying the accuracy of artillery fire; after the war, he continued in an applied direction, applying results from this work to problems in
electrical circuit
An electrical network is an interconnection of electrical components (e.g., battery (electricity), batteries, resistors, inductors, capacitors, switches, transistors) or a model of such an interconnection, consisting of electrical elements (e. ...
s and
acoustics.
In 1938, when Fubini at the age of 59 was nearing retirement,
Benito Mussolini's
Fascists adopted the
anti-Jewish policies advocated for several years by
Adolf Hitler's
Nazis. As a
Jew, Fubini feared for the safety of his family, and so accepted an invitation by
Princeton University to teach there; he died in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
four years later.
Legacy
A main-belt asteroid,
22495 Fubini, was named in his honour.
Publications
* 1920
Lezioni di analisi matematica(Società Tipografico-Editrice Nazionale, Torino)
References
* . The "''Proceedings of the mathematical conference for the celebration of the centenary of the birth of Guido Fubini and Francesco Severi''", includes several researches as well as historical papers describing the contributions of Guido Fubini and Francesco Severi to various branches of pure and applied mathematics: the conference was held on 8–10 October 1979 at the Accademia delle Scienze di Torino.
* . In this paper Gaetano Fichera describes the main contributions of the two scientists to the
Cauchy and the
Dirichlet problem for holomorphic functions of several complex variables, as well as the impact of their work on subsequent researches.
* . In this paper Dionigi Galletto describes the main contributions of the two scientists to the theory of
special and
general relativity.
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fubini, Guido
1879 births
1943 deaths
19th-century Italian mathematicians
20th-century Italian Jews
20th-century Italian mathematicians
Differential geometers
Italian mathematical analysts
Scientists from Venice
Italian emigrants to the United States
Princeton University faculty