Martin Feinberg is an American

chemical engineer A chemical engineer is a professional equipped with the knowledge of chemistry and other basic sciences who works principally in the chemical industry to convert basic raw materials into a variety of Product (chemistry), products and deals with ...

and

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 ...

known for his work in

chemical reaction network theory Chemical reaction network theory is an area of applied mathematics that attempts to model the behaviour of real-world chemical systems. Since its foundation in the 1960s, it has attracted a growing research community, mainly due to its applications ...

Life

Born in New York, Feinberg received his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 1962. A year later, he obtained his master's degree from

Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...

. In 1968, he received his PhD degree from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

. The subject of the doctoral thesis is

fluid mechanics Fluid mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the mechanics of fluids (liquids, gases, and plasma (physics), plasmas) and the forces on them. Originally applied to water (hydromechanics), it found applications in a wide range of discipl ...

and the advisor is William Schowalter. After completing the PhD, he went to work at the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...

, Rochester, NY, where he was a professor of chemical engineering until 1997. He then moved to The

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

, where he serves as Richard M. Morrow Professor of Chemical Engineering and professor of mathematics. Feinberg was a member of the editorial board of the

Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis The ''Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis'' is a scientific journal that is devoted to research in mechanics as a deductive, mathematical science. The current editors in chief of the journal are Felix Otto and Vladimir Sverak. It was fo ...

from 1978–1991.

Research

Together with F. J. M. Horn and Roy Jackson, Feinberg created

, a field of

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 ...

that connects the graphical and algebraic structure of chemical reaction networks with their dynamic behavior. He is best known for stating and proving the deficiency zero theorem (together with Horn and Jackson) and the deficiency one theorem. He has also articulated complete necessary and sufficient conditions for detailed balancing in mass-action systems. More recently, Feinberg has turned his attention to problems arising from biology. Together with Gheorghe Craciun, he developed the theory of injective reaction networks and explored its implications for

biochemistry Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...

. A current research focus (together with Guy Shinar) is the application of chemical reaction network theory to questions of robustness in biochemical reaction networks. He has also worked with Richard Lavine on foundations of classical

thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, Work (thermodynamics), work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed b ...

. Feinberg is the author of "Foundations of Chemical Reaction Network Theory," published in 2019 by Springer in its Applied Mathematical Sciences series.

Selected publications

*Feinberg, M. (2019) "Foundations of Chemical Reaction Network Theory," Springer, Switzerland, * Feinberg, M. (1979) "Lectures on Chemical Reaction Networks", https://zenodo.org/records/10631900 * * * * * * * * *Feinberg, M. and R.B. Lavine, Foundations of the Clausius-Duhem Inequality, pp. 49–64 in New Perspectives in Thermodynamics (editor James Serrin), Springer-Verlag, Berlin- Heidelberg-New York (1986). * *

Notes

External links

Feinberg, M., Lectures on Chemical Reaction Networks, written versions of Lectures 1 - 5 (out of nine) delivered at the Mathematics Research Center, University of Wisconsin, fall, 1979
{{DEFAULTSORT:Feinberg, Martin Living people 1942 births Cooper Union alumni Purdue University College of Engineering alumni Princeton University alumni University of Rochester faculty Ohio State University faculty American chemical engineers 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians