Jacob Willem "Wim" Cohen (27 August 1923

Leeuwarden Leeuwarden (; ; ; ) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in Friesland, Netherlands, with a population of 127,073 (2023). It is the provincial capital and seat of the Provin ...

– 12 November 2000) was a Dutch mathematician, well known for over hundred scientific publications and several books in

queueing theory Queueing theory is the mathematical study of waiting lines, or queues. A queueing model is constructed so that queue lengths and waiting time can be predicted. Queueing theory is generally considered a branch of operations research because th ...

. Cohen was born in a Jewish family, as the son of Benjamin Cohen and Aaltje Klein. Having acquired an

autodidact Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning, self-study and self-teaching) is the practice of education without the guidance of schoolmasters (i.e., teachers, professors, institutions). Overview Autodi ...

knowledge of mathematics while in hiding during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Cohen got an

Engineer's degree An engineer's degree is an advanced academic degree in engineering which is conferred in Europe, some countries of Asia and Latin America, North Africa and a few institutions in the United States. The degree may require a thesis but always require ...

(1949) and Ph.D. degree (1955) in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

Delft University The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, and natural sciences. It is considered one ...

, on a dissertation titled ''Stress Calculations in Helicoidal Shells and Propeller Blades''. He worked as teletraffic engineer with the ''Telecommunications group'' at

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...

(1950–57), at the applied mathematics department at Delft (1957–73) and

University of Utrecht Utrecht University (UU; , formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2023, it had an enrollment of 39,769 students, a ...

(1973-1998). He was buried in

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

Books

*''The single server queue'' (1969) *''Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioural Sciences'' (

Academic Press Academic Press (AP) is an academic book publisher founded in 1941. It launched a British division in the 1950s. Academic Press was acquired by Harcourt, Brace & World in 1969. Reed Elsevier said in 2000 it would buy Harcourt, a deal complete ...

, 1969) *''On regenerative processes in queueing theory'' *''Boundary value problems in queueing systems'' (

Elsevier Elsevier ( ) is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell (journal), Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, ...

, 1983). Editor with Onno J. Boxma. *''Analysis of

random walk In mathematics, a random walk, sometimes known as a drunkard's walk, is a stochastic process that describes a path that consists of a succession of random steps on some Space (mathematics), mathematical space. An elementary example of a rand ...

s'' (

IOS Press IOS Press is a publishing house headquartered in Amsterdam, specialising in the publication of journals and books related to fields of scientific, technical, and medical (STM) research. It was established in 1987 by Einar Fredriksson with a stro ...

, 1992)

Awards

*''

Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen The ''Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen'' (Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities), located on the east side of the Spaarne in downtown Haarlem, Netherlands, was established in 1752 and is the oldest society for the ...

AKZO prize'' (1986) *honorary doctorate from the Technion (1988) *honorary member of the International Advisory Committee of the International Teletraffic Congress. *ITC Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Advisory Committee of the International Teletraffic Congress (1997).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, Wim Queueing theorists Delft University of Technology alumni Academic staff of the Delft University of Technology Dutch Jews Academic staff of Utrecht University People from Leeuwarden 1923 births 2000 deaths 20th-century Dutch mathematicians