Peter Henrici (mathematician)

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Peter Karl Henrici (13 September 1923 – 13 March 1987) was a Swiss mathematician best known for his contributions to the field of numerical analysis.

Peter Karl Henrici
Peter Henrici in 1982
Born(1923-09-13)13 September 1923
Died13 March 1987(1987-03-13) (aged 63)
NationalitySwiss
Alma materETH Zürich
Known forNumerical analysis
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Los Angeles; ETH Zürich; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Doctoral advisorEduard Stiefel
Doctoral studentsGilbert Strang, William B. Gragg

Life

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Henrici was born in Basel and studied law for two years at University of Basel. After World War II he transferred to ETH Zürich where he received a diploma in electrical engineering (1948) and a doctorate in mathematics with Eduard Stiefel as his advisor (1952).

Moving to the USA

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In 1951 he moved to the United States and worked on a joint contract with American University and the National Bureau of Standards. Then, from 1956 to 1962, he taught at University of California, Los Angeles where he became a professor. In 1962 he returned to ETH Zürich as a professor, a position he kept for the rest of his life, though he also held a part-time appointment as William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1985.[1][2]

Numerical Analyst

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An internationally recognized numerical analyst, who published 11 books and more than 80 research papers, Henrici was also a gifted pianist and a highly regarded teacher.[1] He was an editor of a number of scientific journals, including Numerische Mathematik and Zeitschrift für Angewandte Mathematik und Physik. In 1962, he was a speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians, and in 1978 he gave the SIAM John von Neumann Lecture.[2]

Peter Henrici Prize

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Every four years since 1999, the Peter Henrici Prize is awarded by ETH Zürich and SIAM for "original contributions to applied analysis and numerical analysis and/or for exposition appropriate for applied mathematics and scientific computing".[3]

Publications

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  • Henrici, Peter (1962). Discrete variable methods in ordinary differential equations. Wiley.
  • Henrici, Peter (1974). Applied and computational complex analysis, Volume 1: Power series—integration—conformal mapping—location of zeros. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-37244-7.
  • Henrici, Peter (1977). Applied and computational complex analysis, Volume 2: Special functions—integral transforms—asymptotics—continued fractions. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-01525-3.
  • Henrici, Peter (1977). Computational Analysis with the HP-25 Pocket Calculator. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-02938-6.
  • Henrici, Peter (1986). Applied and computational complex analysis, Volume 3: Discrete Fourier analysis—Cauchy integrals—construction of conformal maps—univalent functions. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-08703-3.

References

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