William Feller

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Not to be confused with William Fellner.
William Feller
Born
Vilibald Srećko Feller

July 7, 1906 (1906-07-07)
University of Lund
Brown University
Cornell University
Princeton University
Doctoral advisorRichard Courant
Doctoral studentsPatrick Billingsley
George Forsythe
Robert Kurtz
Henry McKean
Lawrence Shepp
Hale Trotter
Benjamin Weiss
David A. Freedman
Signature

William "Vilim" Feller (July 7, 1906 – January 14, 1970), born Vilibald Srećko Feller, was a Croatian–American mathematician specializing in probability theory.

Early life and education

Feller was born in Zagreb to Ida Oemichen-Perc, a Croatian–Austrian Catholic, and Eugen Viktor Feller, son of a Polish–Jewish father (David Feller) and an Austrian mother (Elsa Holzer).[1]

Eugen Feller was a famous chemist and created Elsa fluid named after his mother[clarification needed]. According to Gian-Carlo Rota, Eugen Feller's surname was a "Slavic tongue twister", which William changed at the age of twenty.[2] This claim appears to be false. His forename, Vilibald, was chosen by his Catholic mother for the saint day of his birthday.[3]

Work

Feller held a docent position at the University of Kiel beginning in 1928. Because he refused to sign a Nazi oath,[4] he fled the Nazis and went to Copenhagen, Denmark in 1933. He also lectured in Sweden (Stockholm and Lund).[5] As a refugee in Sweden, Feller reported being troubled by increasing fascism at the universities. He reported that the mathematician Torsten Carleman would offer his opinion that Jews and foreigners should be executed.[6]

Finally, in 1939 he arrived in the U.S., where he became a citizen in 1944 and was on the

faculty at Brown and Cornell. In 1950 he became a professor at Princeton University
.

The works of Feller are contained in 104 papers and two books on a variety of topics such as

differential equations in addition to his work in mathematical statistics
and probability.

Feller was one of the greatest

one-parameter semigroups of stochastic processes
gave rise to the theory of "Feller operators".

Results

Numerous topics relating to probability are named after him, including

diffusion processes, and the law of the iterated logarithm. Feller was among those early editors who launched the journal Mathematical Reviews
.

Notable books

Recognition

In 1949, Feller was named a

Fellow of the American Statistical Association.[11] He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1958, the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1960, and the American Philosophical Society in 1966.[12][13][14] Feller won the National Medal of Science in 1969.[citation needed
] He was president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ Zubrinic, Darko (2006). "William Feller (1906-1970)". Croatianhistory.net. Accessed 3 July 2018.
  2. ISBN 0-8176-3866-0
    .
  3. ^ O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "William Feller", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
  4. ^ "Biography of William Feller". History of William Feller. Retrieved 2006-06-27.
  5. MR 2522825
    .
  6. ^ (Siegmund-Schultze 2009, p. 135)
  7. ^ Preface to his Mathematical Methods of Statistics.
  8. ^ Page 199: Indiscrete Thoughts.
  9. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1951-09491-4
    .
  10. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1958-10252-9
    .
  11. ^ "View/Search Fellows of the ASA". American Statistical Association. Retrieved 2016-07-22.
  12. ^ "William Feller". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2022-09-29.
  13. ^ "William Feller". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2022-09-29.
  14. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2022-09-29.

External links

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