Person: Kruskal (2), Martin
Martin Kruskal was an American mathematician and physicist who worked in plasma physics as well as soliton equations, asymptotic analysis, and surreal numbers.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Martin attended Fieldston High School in Riverdale, New York, and after graduating entered the University of Chicago.
- He soon persuaded Kruskal that he should undertake research at his new Institute and managed to obtain a position for him as Assistant Instructor in the Mathematics Department.
- Kruskal became an assistant in 1946 and, after studying for his M.S. was awarded the degree in 1948.
- In 1959, while continuing to hold his post in Project Matterhorn, Kruskal was also appointed as a lecturer in astronomy at Princeton.
- The award of a National Science Foundation Senior Fellowship saw Kruskal spend 1959-60 at the Max Planck Institute in Munich.
- In 1961 Kruskal was promoted to Professor of Astronomy at Princeton but continued his position within Project Matterhorn until 1964.
- Continuing his different roles at Princeton, Kruskal was appointed as director of the Applied Mathematics programme in 1968, a role he held for 20 years.
- Kruskal's later work studied soliton equations, asymptotic analysis, and surreal numbers.
- Analysing asymptotic series also led Kruskal to become interested in surreal numbers, generalisations of real numbers introduced by John Conway.
- Kruskal's important paper (written jointly with Clifford S Gardner, John M Greene and Robert M Miura) Korteweg-de Vries equation and generalizations.
- The prize was awarded jointly to Kruskal and Gardner for the above mentioned Korteweg-de Vries paper.
- This was certainly not the first honour that Kruskal had received.
- In 1997 Kruskal was elected to the Royal Society of London, in 2000 he received an honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, and in 2001 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Born 28 September 1925, New York City, New York, USA. Died 26 December 2006, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Astronomy, Origin Usa
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
