Raphael M. Robinson

Raphael M. Robinson

Raphael Mitchel Robinson (November 2 1911, National City California - January 27 1995. Berkeley California) was an American mathematician.

Born in National City, California, Robinson was the youngest of four children of a lawyer and a teacher. He was awarded the BA (1932), MA (1933), and Ph.D. (1935), all in mathematics, and all from the University of California, Berkeley. His Ph.D. thesis, on complex analysis, was titled "Some results in the theory of Schlicht functions".

In 1941 Robinson married his former student Julia Bowman. She became his Berkeley colleague and the first woman president of the American Mathematical Society.

Robinson worked on mathematical logic, set theory, geometry, number theory, and combinatorics. Robinson (1937) set out a simpler and more conventional version of John Von Neumann's 1923 axiomatic set theory. Soon after Alfred Tarski joined Berkeley's mathematics department in 1942, Robinson began to do major work on the foundations of mathematics, building on Tarski's concept of "essential undecidability," by proving a number of mathematical theories undecidable. Robinson (1950) proved that an essentially undecidable theory need not have an infinite number of axioms by coming up with a counterexample: Robinson arithmetic "Q". "Q" is finitely axiomatizable because it lacks Peano arithmetic's axiom schema of induction; nevertheless "Q", like Peano arithmetic, is incomplete and undecidable in the sense of Gödel. Robinson's work on undecidability culminated in his coauthoring Tarski et al (1953), which established, among other things, the undecidability of group theory, lattice theory, abstract projective geometry, and closure algebras.

Robinson worked in number theory, even employing very early computers to obtain results. For example, he coded the Lucas-Lehmer primality test to determine whether 2"n" − 1 was prime for all prime "n" < 2304 on a SWAC (computer). In 1952, he showed that these Mersenne numbers were all composite except for 17 values of "n" = 2, 3, 5, 7, 13, 17, 19, 31, 61, 89, 107, 127, 521, 607, 1279, 2203, 2281. He discovered the last 5 of these Mersenne primes, the largest ones known at the time.

Robinson wrote several papers on tilings of the plane, in particular a clear and remarkable 1971 paper "Undecidability and nonperiodicity for tilings of the plane" simplifying what had been a tangled theory.

Robinson became a full professor at Berkeley in 1949 and retired in 1973. He remained intellectually active until the very end of his long life. He published at age:
* 80 "Minsky's small universal Turing machine," describing a universal Turing machine with 4 symbols and 7 states;
* 83 "Two figures in the hyperbolic plane."

References

* Robinson, R. M., 1937, "The theory of classes: A modification of Von Neumann's system," "Journal of Symbolic Logic 2": 29-36.
* ------, 1950, "An Essentially Undecidable Axiom System." "Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematics": 729-30.
* Alfred Tarski, A. Mostowski, and R. M. Robinson, 1953. "Undecidable theories". North Holland.
* Leon Henkin, 1995, " [http://www.math.ucla.edu/~asl/bsl/0103-toc.htm In memoriam : Raphael Mitchell Robinson,] " "Bull. Symbolic Logic 1": 340–43.
* "In memoriam : Raphael Mitchell Robinson (1911–1995)," "Modern Logic 5": 329.

External links

*. The source for much of this entry.
*


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Raphael Robinson — Raphael Mitchel Robinson (* 2. November 1911 in National City, Kalifornien; † 27. Januar 1995 in Berkeley, Kalifornien) war ein US amerikanischer mathematischer Logiker und Mathematiker. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Leben 2 Werk 3 …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • ROBINSON (J.) — Julia ROBINSON 1919 1985 Née le 8 décembre 1919 à Saint. Louis, dans le Missouri, Julia Robinson fut une logicienne éminente et la mathématicienne américaine la plus connue du XXe siècle. Épouse d’un mathématicien de grand talent, Raphael M.… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • Robinson (name) — Family name name = Robinson imagesize= caption= pronunciation = meaning = son of Robin region = English speaking countries origin = England related names = footnotes = Infobox Given Name Revised name = Robinson imagesize= caption= pronunciation …   Wikipedia

  • Robinson (Name) — Robinson ist ein häufiger Familienname und seltener auch ein männlicher Vorname. Bedeutung Der Name ist patronymisch gebildet und bedeutet „Sohn des Robin“. Varianten Varianten sind Robson, Robeson, Robison und Robinsohn. Bekannte Namensträger… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Raphael senga — Senga Kitenge Raphael était un homme politique (sénateur) congolais. Biographie Née à Lubumbashi le 12 septembre 1928 de Albert Oleko et Louise Mulongoy. Études primaires et secondaires : À l’Institut Saint Boniface (Lubumbashi). Diplômé en… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Raphael Saadig — Raphael Saadiq Raphael Saadiq Naissance 14 mai 1966 Oakland Pays d’origine américain …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Raphael Saadiq — aux Eurockéennes de Belfort 2011 Naissance 14 mai 1966 Oakland Pays& …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Raphael Saadiq — Raphael Saadiq, 2008 Chartplatzierungen (vorläufig) Vorlage:Infobox Chartplatzierungen/Wartung/vorläufige Chartplatzierung …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Robinson (horse) — Robinson is a horse ridden by the American show jumper Richard Spooner.* Color: Fleabitten Gray * Sex: Gelding * Born: 1988 in Germany * Breed: Hanoverian * Breeding: by Raphael, out of Garina * Rider: Richard Spooner * Owner: HMB… …   Wikipedia

  • Raphael Soyer — Infobox Artist bgcolour = #6495ED name = Raphael Soyer imagesize = caption = birthname = birthdate = 1899 location = Borisoglebsk, Tambov deathdate = 1987 deathplace = nationality = American field = Draftsman, Painting, Printing training =… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”