Person: Glimm, James
James Glimm is an American mathematician who researched in both pure and applied mathematics and whose work has revolutionised shock-wave theory and other fields of study.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- William Glimm, born 7 May 1893 in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA, was a superintendent in a paper mill.
- We note that William F Glimm was elected to the First Ward of the Republican County Committee in 1961.
- James was born in Peoria, Illinois, but at the time of the 1940 census he was living at 833 Carleton Road, Westfield, Union, New Jersey.
- James grew up in Westfield and in 1947, when he was twelve years old, he received a First Class Award and a Merit Badge from the District 4, Watchung Area Council, Boy Scouts of America, the presentation taking place in Roosevelt Junior High School.
- Glimm attended the New Westfield High School, graduating in 1952.
- After graduating from Westfield High School, Glimm entered Columbia University, New York, where he studied engineering.
- After graduating with a B.A., Glimm remained at Columbia University undertaking research advised by Richard V Kadison.
- Glimm was awarded a Ph.D.by Columbia University in 1959 for his 40-page thesis On a certain class of operator algebras.
- Three further papers by Glimm appeared in 1960, namely Unitary operators in C-algebras, A Stone-Weierstrass theorem for C-algebras, and Two Cartesian products which are Euclidean spaces.
- A National Science Foundation Fellowship (1959-1960) allowed Glimm to spend the year from June 1959 to June 1960 at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
- Jim's colloquium concerned his "random choice" method now known as the "Glimm scheme" to construct the first global solution for a system of conservation laws in one space dimension.
- In 1968 Glimm was appointed as full Professor at the Courant Institute, New York University.
- In 1970 Thomas Spencer became Glimm's research student at the Courant Institute.
- Glimm remained at the Courant Institute until 1974 when he became a full professor at the Rockefeller University.
- Glimm was a plenary speaker at the 1974 International Congress of Mathematicians held in Vancouver in August 1974.
- Raised in Westfield, Dr Glimm is the Director of the Center for Data Intensive Computing and Chair of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics at Stony Brook University.
- Dr Glimm and seven other distinguished scientists and engineers will receive their medals November 6.
- Dr Glimm has made enormous contributions to shock wave theory, which explains the intense compression in natural phenomena, such as air pressure in sonic booms.
- For many years now, Glimm has been the chair of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics at Stony Brook.
- In the past few years Glimm has also been a key participant in the establishing of a Center for Data Intensive Computing at Brookhaven National Lab, providing essential scientific direction for this new and successful unit.
- Glimm's outstanding leadership abilities are shown in his talent for spotting mathematical topics that are ripe for development and then for assembling interdisciplinary teams of researchers to focus on specific problems in the area, with participants ranging from the most theoretical mathematicians to the end users in engineering.
- Let us end this biography by quoting from Glimm himself about his views on the future of mathematics.
Born 24 March 1934, Peoria, Illinois, USA.
View full biography at MacTutor
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Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
