Person: Kreisel, Georg
Georg Kreisel was an Austrian-born mathematical logician who studied and worked in the United Kingdom and America and chiefly studied proof and computation.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Kreisel studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge graduating with a B.A. in 1944.
- During his undergraduate years Kreisel was influenced by Wittgenstein who was also at Trinity.
- Kreisel was sent to do War Service with the Admiralty immediately his university courses were over and he began work at West Leigh near Havant and close to the naval base at Portsmouth.
- After a while, Kreisel was moved to Fanum House in central London where he studied the effects of waves on the harbours which were being designed for the Normandy landings.
- In 1946 Kreisel returned to Cambridge to undertake research, studying mathematical logic.
- After the award of his doctorate Kreisel hoped for a Fellowship at Trinity but this was not forthcoming.
- Freeman Dyson was an undergraduate at Cambridge in the same year as Kreisel and by the 1950s was at the Institute for Advanced Study.
- He persuaded Gödel to invite Kreisel to the Institute for Advanced Study and Kreisel arrived there in the summer of 1955.
- Kreisel returned to Reading in 1957 but kept up a mathematically important correspondence with Gödel.
- In 1958-59 Kreisel was back in the United States, this time at Stanford.
- In 1962 Kreisel returned to the United States and was appointed to Stanford where he remained on the staff until he retired in 1985.
- One important aspect which Kreisel worked on over a period of 30 years was his "unwinding".
- But, as with his work on constructivity, Kreisel also sought to replace those by a more sophisticated stance about foundations.
- Kreisel was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1966.
Born 15 September 1923, Graz, Austria. Died 1 March 2015, Salzburg, Austria.
View full biography at MacTutor
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Origin Austria
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
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- @J-J-O'Connor
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References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
