Michael Fekete

Michael (Mihály) Fekete
Born	July 19, 1886(1886-07-19) Zenta, Bácska, Austria-Hungary
Died	May 13, 1957(1957-05-13) (aged 70) Israel
Residence	Israel
Nationality	Israel
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	Budapest University Hebrew University
Alma mater	Budapest University
Doctoral advisor	Lipót Fejér
Doctoral students	Aryeh Dvoretzky Amnon Jakimovski Michael Bahir Maschler Menahem Max Schiffer
Known for	Fekete's lemma, Fekete polynomial
Notable awards	Israel Prize for Exact Sciences (1955)

Michael (Mihály) Fekete (Hebrew: מיכאל פקטה‎; July 19, 1886–May 13, 1957) was an Israeli-Hungarian mathematician.^[1]

Biography

Fekete was born in 1886 in Zenta, Bačka, in the Hungarian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (today Senta in Vojvodina, Serbia). He received his PhD in 1909 from the Budapest University (later renamed to Eötvös Loránd University), under the stewardship of Lipót Fejér, among whose students were other great mathematicians such as Paul Erdős, John von Neumann, Pál Turán and George Pólya. After completing his PhD he left to Georg-August University of Göttingen, which in those days was considered a mathematics hub, and subsequently returned to the University of Budapest, where he attained the title of Privatdozent. In addition, Fekete engaged in private mathematics tutoring. Among his students was János Neumann, who, was later known in the United States as John von Neumann. In 1922, Fekete published a paper together with von Neumann in the subject of transfinite diameter. This was von Neumann's first scientific paper. Fekete dedicated the majority of his scientific work to this subject.

In 1928 he immigrated to Israel and was among the first instructors in the Institute of Mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1929 he was promoted to professor in the institute. Eventually he succeeded the famous mathematicians Edmund Landau and Adolf Abraham Halevi Fraenkel in heading the institute. He later moved on to become the dean of Natural Sciences, and between the years 1946–1948 he was Hebrew University Provost.

Among his students were Aryeh Dvoretzky, Amnon Jakimovski and Michael Bahir Maschler.

Awards

In 1955, Fekete was awarded the Israel Prize for exact sciences.^[2]

References

1. ^ Rogosinski, W. W. (1958). "Obituary: Michael Fekete". Journal of the London Mathematical Society. Second Series 33: 496–500. doi:10.1112/jlms/s1-33.4.496. ISSN 0024-6107. MR0100535. 
2. ^ "Israel Prize recipients in 1955 (in Hebrew)". cms.education.gov.il (Israel Prize official website). Archived from the original on 4 March 2010 by WebCite®. http://cms.education.gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/PrasIsrael/Tashyag/Tashkab_Tashyag_Rikuz.htm?DictionaryKey=Tashtav. 

See also

• Fekete problem
• Fekete polynomial
• Fekete–Szegő inequality
• Fekete's lemma

External links

• Michael Fekete at the Mathematics Genealogy Project.

Persondata
Name	Fekete, Michael
Alternative names
Short description	Mathematician
Date of birth	July 19, 1886
Place of birth	Senta, Bačka, Austria-Hungary
Date of death	May 13, 1957
Place of death	Israel