Gene H. Golub
Gene Howard Golub (February 29, 1932 – November 16, 2007), Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science (and, by courtesy, of Electrical Engineering) at Stanford University, was one of the preeminent numerical analysts of his generation.
Gene H. Golub | |
|---|---|
 Gene Golub in 2007 | |
| Born | February 29, 1932 |
| Died | November 16, 2007 (aged 75) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Computer science |
| Institutions | Stanford University |
| Doctoral advisor | Abraham Taub |
| Doctoral students | Richard P. Brent Michael Heath Dianne O'Leary Michael Overton Michael Saunders Margaret H. Wright |
| Influenced | Alan George Roger Horn |
Personal life
Born in Chicago, he was educated at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, receiving his B.S. (1953), M.A. (1954) and Ph.D. (1959) all in mathematics.[1] His M.A. degree was more specifically in Mathematical Statistics. His PhD dissertation was entitled "The Use of Chebyshev Matrix Polynomials in the Iterative Solution of Linear Equations Compared to the Method of Successive Overrelaxation" and his thesis adviser was Abraham Taub. Gene Golub succumbed to acute myeloid leukemia on the morning of 16 November 2007 at the Stanford Hospital.[2]
Stanford University
He arrived at Stanford in 1962 and became a professor there in 1970. He advised more than thirty doctoral students, many of whom have themselves achieved distinction. Gene Golub was an important figure in numerical analysis and pivotal to creating the NA-Net and the NA-Digest, as well as the International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics.[3]
One of his best-known books is Matrix Computations,[4] co-authored with Charles F. Van Loan. He was a major contributor to algorithms for matrix decompositions. In particular he published an algorithm together with William Kahan in 1970 that made the computation of the singular value decomposition (SVD) feasible and that is still used today. A survey of his work was published in 2007 by Oxford University Press as "Milestones in Matrix Computation".[5]
Recognition
Golub was awarded the B. Bolzano Gold Medal for Merits in the Field of Mathematical Sciences and was one of the few elected to three national academies: the National Academy of Sciences (1993), the National Academy of Engineering (1990), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1994). He was also a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (1986).
He is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher.[6] He held 11 honorary doctorates and was scheduled to receive an honorary doctorate from ETH Zürich on November 17, 2007. He was a visiting professor at Princeton (1970), MIT (1979), ETH (1974 & 2002), and Oxford (1982, 1998 & 2007).
Gene Golub served as the president of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) from 1985 to 1987 and was founding editor of both the SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing (SISC) and the SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications (SIMAX).
The bulk of Gene Golub's research work was collaborative. He had at least 181 distinct co-authors[7] and the number may still increase as co-authored papers keep appearing posthumously.
References
- Chen Greif, Gene H. Golub Biography, Online at Oxford University Press , accessed 24 November 2007
- Moler, Cleve (2007-11-16), Gene Golub, 1932 - 2007, NA Digest, retrieved 2007-11-17
- Trefethen, Lloyd N. (2007), "Obituary: Gene H. Golub (1932–2007)", Nature, 450 (7172): 962, Bibcode:2007Natur.450..962T, doi:10.1038/450962a, PMID 18075573.
- Golub, Gene H.; van Loan, Charles F. (1996), Matrix Computations (3rd ed.), Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 978-0-8018-5414-9
- Chan, Raymond; Greif, Chen; O'Leary, Dianne (2007), Milestones in Matrix Computation: The selected works of Gene H. Golub with commentaries, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-920681-0
- Thomson ISI, Golub, Gene H., ISI Highly Cited Researchers, retrieved 2007-11-17
- Co-authors of "Golub, Gene Howard", retrieved 2011-10-06
External links
- Home page at Stanford University Archived May 13, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
- Gene H. Golub at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- Gene H Golub Memorial page
- Oral history interviews with Gene H. Golub, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. Interview by Pamela McCorduck, 16 May 1979 and 8 June 1979, Stanford, California.
- Gene Golub, Oral history interview by Thomas Haigh, 22–23 October 2005, Stanford University. Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Philadelphia, PA, six-hour interview covers full career - transcript online.
- Gene Golub in pictures around the world.
- Gene Golub Papers
- "Because of space limitations... Master bibliography of matrix computation (pdf, 565 Kbytes, 66 pages) is online" from 4th edition (2013) of "Matrix computations":
