12 Facts About Solomon Lefschetz

1.

Solomon Lefschetz was an American mathematician who did fundamental work on algebraic topology, its applications to algebraic geometry, and the theory of non-linear ordinary differential equations.

2.

Solomon Lefschetz was born in Moscow, the son of Alexander Lefschetz and his wife Sarah or Vera Lifschitz, Jewish traders who used to travel around Europe and the Middle East.

3.

Solomon Lefschetz was educated there in engineering at the Ecole Centrale Paris, but emigrated to the US in 1905.

4.

Solomon Lefschetz was badly injured in an industrial accident in 1907, losing both hands.

5.

Solomon Lefschetz then took positions in University of Nebraska and University of Kansas, moving to Princeton University in 1924, where he was given a permanent position.

6.

Solomon Lefschetz proved theorems on the topology of hyperplane sections of algebraic varieties, which provide a basic inductive tool.

7.

Solomon Lefschetz was an Invited Speaker of the ICM in 1920 in Strasbourg.

8.

Solomon Lefschetz was editor of the Annals of Mathematics from 1928 to 1958.

9.

Solomon Lefschetz played an important role in the foundation of mathematics in Mexico, and sent several students back to Princeton.

10.

Solomon Lefschetz's students included Emilio Lluis, Jose Adem, Samuel Gitler, Santiago Lopez de Medrano, Francisco Javier Gonzalez-Acuna and Alberto Verjovsky.

11.

Solomon Lefschetz's team became the world's largest group of mathematicians devoted to research in nonlinear differential equations.

12.

Solomon Lefschetz left RIAS in 1964 to form the Lefschetz Center for Dynamical Systems at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.