Albert W. Tucker
Albert W. Tucker | |
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Albert William Tucker (28 November 1905 – 25 January 1995) was a Canadian
Early life and education
Albert Tucker was born in
Career
Tucker then returned to Princeton to join the faculty in 1933, where he stayed until 1974. He chaired the mathematics department for about twenty years, one of the longest tenures. His extensive relationships within the field made him a great source for oral histories of the mathematics community.
In 1950, Albert Tucker gave the name and interpretation "prisoner's dilemma" to Merrill M. Flood and Melvin Dresher's model of cooperation and conflict, resulting in the most well-known game theoretic paradox.[5] He is also well known for the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker conditions, a basic result in non-linear programming, which was published in conference proceedings, rather than in a journal.
In the 1960s, he was heavily involved in mathematics education, as chair of the
In the early 1980s, Tucker recruited Princeton history professor
Students and legacy
Tucker's Ph.D. students include
Tucker noticed the leadership ability and talent of a young mathematics graduate student named
Tucker died in Hightstown, N.J. in 1995 at age 89. His sons, Alan Tucker and Thomas W. Tucker, and his grandson Thomas J. Tucker are all also professional mathematicians.
Tucker Prize
At each (triennial) International Symposium of the Mathematical Optimization Society (MOS) the Tucker Prize, in honour of A. W. Tucker, is given for outstanding thesis in the area of discrete mathematics.[7]
Works
- with H. W. Kuhn (eds.): Contributions to the theory of games, Annals of Mathematical Studies 1950
- with H. W. Kuhn (eds.): Linear inequalities and related systems, Annals of Mathematical Studies 1956
- with Allan Gewirtz, Harry Sitomer: Constructive linear algebra, Englewood Cliffs 1974
- with Evar Nering: Linear Programs and related problems, Academic Press 1993
References
- ^ a b Albert W. Tucker at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- MR 1350012
- ISBN 978-1-4419-6280-5.
- .
- ^ Poundstone 1993, pp. 8, 117.
- ^ George B. Thomas Jr., Calculus and Analytic Geometry, 4th ed. (Reading, MA, Menlo Park, CA, London, and Don Mills, Ontario: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1968), p. vii.
- ^ "Mathematical Optimization Society".
Bibliography
- Poundstone, William (1993). Prisoner's Dilemma. New York: Anchor. ISBN 0-385-41580-X.
Further reading
- Nasar, Sylvia (January 27, 1995). "Albert W. Tucker, 89, Pioneering Mathematician". The New York Times.
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Albert Tucker", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
External links
- News from PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
- Albert W. Tucker at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- A Guide to Albert William Tucker Papers
- Extract from an obituary
- Kuhn-Tucker conditions
- The Princeton Mathematics Community in the 1930s An oral history project initiated by Tucker, also contains a series of interviews with Tucker.
- Oral History Interview with Albert W. Tucker, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota.
- Biography of Albert W. Tucker from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences