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Theodore Motzkin was a mathematician of great erudition, versatility, and ingenuity. He was the originator of the theory of linear inequalities and linear programming, as well as one of the leading mathematicians in the fields of combinatorics, convexity, and approximation theory. The range of his work was even broader, including important and beautiful contributions to algebraic geometry, algebra, number theory, function theory, graph theory, and other fields. The very name Motzkin has become familiar as the descriptive title of many mathematical concepts, processes, and theorems. Yet in all his different areas of research there was the unifying thread of his own characteristic approach and style. In the twenty years he spent on the UCLA campus, he exerted a quiet but strong and stimulating influence on colleagues and students. If it is possible to speak of passion in one so mild-mannered, his was a passion for meticulous precision and order. In his hands precision became a powerful creative tool. If one came to him with an amorphous germ of an idea--a thing which many of his colleagues and students experienced--he would quickly shape it and reshape it, adding a wealth of new ideas, until it had gained both precision and beauty. From there he would proceed to deepen and generalize in many directions. It was invariably an exciting and stimulating experience. His unique teaching style and his readiness to discuss mathematics at every level gained him the admiration and affection of the many talented undergraduate and graduate students who were attracted to his lectures and seminars. His students are now in important academic positions all over the world.
Ted Motzkin was born in Berlin. His father, Leo Motzkin, had come to Berlin from Russia at the age of thirteen to develop his own marked talents for mathematics. In fact, he started on a Ph.D. dissertation under L. Kronecker. However, he decided instead to devote his energies to the Zionist Movement, which he helped found and direct. Ted's talents, encouraged and challenged by his father, became apparent at an early age. He started university study when not yet sixteen, and studied at Göttingen and Berlin, where, at the age of nineteen, he wrote a draft of a thesis on abstract structures under I. Schur, and finally at Basel where he studied and collaborated with A. Ostrowski. His thesis, under Ostrowski, finished in 1934, developed the theory of linear inequalities, a major achievement whose full impact became apparent only with the development of computers and systems analysis. The RAND Corporation republished the thesis in 1952.
His first academic position was at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem from 1935 to 1948. There he married Naomi Orenstein, and there his three sons were born. In addition to his mathematical activities, he helped create the Hebrew terminology for mathematics, and during World War II was cryptographer for the British government in Palestine. He came to the United States in 1948, and, after two years at Harvard and Boston College, came to the Los Angeles campus in 1950.
While already a mathematician with an international reputation, it is here that his fame became worldwide. He was sought as visiting professor, as organizer and principal speaker of many institutes, including two symposia on combinatorics and inequalities (which he directed); and as editor of journals and symposia. He gave unstintingly of his time and energy to his students, his colleagues, and to many of these projects.
Through the initiative of Naomi, his house served as a center not only for mathematicians, but for scholars of many disciplines from all over the world. His three sons have continued the scholarly tradition of the Motzkin family: Leo, professor of Arabic in Haifa; Elhanan, a Los Angeles campus professor in mathematics, currently at the Institut H. Poincaré in Paris; and Gabriel, a graduate student in political science at Yale.
Ted died suddenly and unexpectedly on December 15, 1970, at the height of his activity and creative power. In addition to 128 published papers and twenty manuscripts in press, there are over fifty partially completed research papers, and three book manuscripts which will prove a source of new ideas and efforts for years to come.
E. G. Straus
B. Gordon
B. Rothschild
Ted Motzkin was born in Berlin. His father, Leo Motzkin, had come to Berlin from Russia at the age of thirteen to develop his own marked talents for mathematics. In fact, he started on a Ph.D. dissertation under L. Kronecker. However, he decided instead to devote his energies to the Zionist Movement, which he helped found and direct. Ted's talents, encouraged and challenged by his father, became apparent at an early age. He started university study when not yet sixteen, and studied at Göttingen and Berlin, where, at the age of nineteen, he wrote a draft of a thesis on abstract structures under I. Schur, and finally at Basel where he studied and collaborated with A. Ostrowski. His thesis, under Ostrowski, finished in 1934, developed the theory of linear inequalities, a major achievement whose full impact became apparent only with the development of computers and systems analysis. The RAND Corporation republished the thesis in 1952.
His first academic position was at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem from 1935 to 1948. There he married Naomi Orenstein, and there his three sons were born. In addition to his mathematical activities, he helped create the Hebrew terminology for mathematics, and during World War II was cryptographer for the British government in Palestine. He came to the United States in 1948, and, after two years at Harvard and Boston College, came to the Los Angeles campus in 1950.
While already a mathematician with an international reputation, it is here that his fame became worldwide. He was sought as visiting professor, as organizer and principal speaker of many institutes, including two symposia on combinatorics and inequalities (which he directed); and as editor of journals and symposia. He gave unstintingly of his time and energy to his students, his colleagues, and to many of these projects.
Through the initiative of Naomi, his house served as a center not only for mathematicians, but for scholars of many disciplines from all over the world. His three sons have continued the scholarly tradition of the Motzkin family: Leo, professor of Arabic in Haifa; Elhanan, a Los Angeles campus professor in mathematics, currently at the Institut H. Poincaré in Paris; and Gabriel, a graduate student in political science at Yale.
Ted died suddenly and unexpectedly on December 15, 1970, at the height of his activity and creative power. In addition to 128 published papers and twenty manuscripts in press, there are over fifty partially completed research papers, and three book manuscripts which will prove a source of new ideas and efforts for years to come.
E. G. Straus
B. Gordon
B. Rothschild
This University of California obituary is available at THIS LINK