Person: Askey, Richard

Richard Askey was an American mathematician who worked in special functions.

It is impossible in an article like this to give much in the way of details of the impressive publications by Askey on the harmonic analysis of special functions, orthogonal polynomials and special functions, and special functions related to group theory.
This was the first of two papers by Askey and Hirschman which completed a programme of research initiated by Hirschman in 1955.
In 1965 Askey published On some problems posed by Karlin and Szegő concerning orthogonal polynomials and by this time his major contributions to special functions and orthogonal polynomials were well under way.
Askey published an important book Orthogonal polynomials and special functions in 1975.
Twenty five years after he gave his series of ten lectures to the National Science Foundation Regional Conference, Askey published another major work on special functions.
If one were to single out one paper by Askey of being of particular importance, it must be the one which contained a result which was used by Louis de Branges in giving his complete proof of the Bieberbach Conjecture in 1984.
Askey is not only known for his mathematical research, however, for he is also a highly respected writer on mathematical education.
Among the many honours which have been given to Askey we can mention only a few.
Askey has remained at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since his first appointment in 1963, becoming Gabor Szegő Professor of Mathematics in 1986 and John Bascom Professor of Mathematics in 1995.

Born 4 June 1933, St Louis, Missouri, USA. Died 9 October 2019, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.

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O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive