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Isaac Jacob Schoenberg (April 21, 1903 – February 21, 1990) was a Romanian-American mathematician, known for his invention of splines.


Life and career

Schoenberg was born in
Galați Galați ( , , ; also known by other #Etymology and names, alternative names) is the capital city of Galați County in the historical region of Western Moldavia, in eastern Romania. Galați is a port town on the river Danube. and the sixth-larges ...
to a Jewish family, the youngest of four children. He studied at the University of Iași, receiving his M.A. in 1922. From 1922 to 1925 he studied at the Universities of
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
and
Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...
, working on a topic in analytic number theory suggested by
Issai Schur Issai Schur (10 January 1875 – 10 January 1941) was a Russian mathematician who worked in Germany for most of his life. He studied at the Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Berlin. He obtained his doctorate in 1901, became lecturer i ...
. He presented his thesis to the University of Iași, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1926. In Göttingen, he met Edmund Landau, who arranged a visit for Schoenberg to the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...
in 1928. During this visit, Schoenberg began his work on total positivity and variation-diminishing linear transformations. In 1930, he returned from Jerusalem, and married Landau's daughter Charlotte in Berlin. In 1930, he was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship, which enabled him to go to the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, visiting the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
,
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 the
Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...
in
Princeton, New Jersey The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...
. From 1935, he taught at
Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the e ...
and Colby College. In 1941, he was appointed to the faculty at the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
. During 1943–1945 he was released from U. Penn. in order to perform war work as a mathematician at the
Aberdeen Proving Ground Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) is a U.S. Army facility located adjacent to Aberdeen, Harford County, Maryland, United States. More than 7,500 civilians and 5,000 military personnel work at APG. There are 11 major commands among the tenant units, ...
. It was during this time that he initiated the work for which he is most famous, the theory of splines. In 1966 he moved to the
University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...
where he became a member of the Mathematics Research Center. He remained there until he retired in 1973. In 1974 he won a Lester R. Ford Award.


Books

* * *


Papers

He wrote about 175 papers on many disparate subjects. Around 50 of these were on Splines. He also wrote on
Approximation theory In mathematics, approximation theory is concerned with how function (mathematics), functions can best be approximation, approximated with simpler functions, and with quantitative property, quantitatively characterization (mathematics), characteri ...
, the Kakeya problem, Polya frequency functions, and a problem of Edmund Landau. His coauthors included
John von Neumann John von Neumann ( ; ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian and American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist and engineer. Von Neumann had perhaps the widest coverage of any mathematician of his time, in ...
,
Hans Rademacher Hans Adolph Rademacher (; 3 April 1892 – 7 February 1969) was a German-born American mathematician, known for work in mathematical analysis and number theory. Biography Rademacher received his Ph.D. in 1916 from Georg-August-Universität Göt ...
,
Theodore Motzkin Theodore Samuel Motzkin (; 26 March 1908 – 15 December 1970) was an Israeli- American mathematician. Biography Motzkin's father Leo Motzkin, a Ukrainian Jew, went to Berlin at the age of thirteen to study mathematics. He pursued university ...
,
George Polya George may refer to: Names * George (given name) * George (surname) People * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Papagheorghe, also known as Jorge / GEØRGE * George, stage name of Gior ...
, A. S. Besicovitch, Gábor Szegő, Donald J. Newman, Richard Askey, Bernard Epstein and Carl de Boor.


See also

* Perfect spline


References

* Schoenberg, Contributions to the problem of approximation of equidistant data by analytic functions, ''Quart. Appl. Math.,'' vol. 4, pp. 45–99 and 112–141, 1946.


External links

* *
Schoenberg, Isaac Jacob (HAT = History of Approximation Theory website)


{{DEFAULTSORT:Schoenberg, Isaac Jacob 1903 births 1990 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians Romanian mathematicians People from Galați Romanian people of Jewish descent Romanian emigrants to the United States Alexandru Ioan Cuza University alumni Swarthmore College faculty University of Pennsylvania faculty Mathematicians at the University of Pennsylvania University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Rockefeller Fellows Approximation theorists