Background
He was born to a Jewish family with strong Zionist beliefs, in Waldenburg, Germany, which is now Wałbrzych, in Poland.
engineer mathematician university professor
He was born to a Jewish family with strong Zionist beliefs, in Waldenburg, Germany, which is now Wałbrzych, in Poland.
Mediterranean Shipping Company, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1946. Doctor of Philosophy, London University, 1949, Doctor of Science, 1957. Master of Arts, Yale, 1968.
Nearly half of Robinson"s papers were in Applied mathematics rather than in Pure mathematics (according to MacTutor). In 1933, he emigrated to British Mandate of Palestine, where he earned a first degree from the Hebrew University. Robinson was in France when the Nazis invaded during World World War II, and escaped by train and on foot, being alternately questioned by French soldiers suspicious of his German passport and asked by them to share his map, which was more detailed than theirs.
While in London, he joined the Free French Air Force and contributed to the war effort by teaching himself aerodynamics and becoming an expert on the airfoils used in the wings of fighter planes.
After the war, Robinson worked in London, Toronto, and Jerusalem, but ended up at University of California, Los Angeles in 1962. He became known for his approach of using the methods of mathematical logic to attack problems in analysis and abstract algebra.
He "introduced many of the fundamental notions of model theory". Using these methods, he found a way of using formal logic to show that there are self-consistent nonstandard models of the real number system that include infinite and infinitesimal numbers.
Robinson"s book Non-standard Analysis was published in 1966.
Robinson was strongly interested in the history and philosophy of mathematics, and often remarked that he wanted to get inside the head of Leibniz, the first mathematician to attempt to articulate clearly the concept of infinitesimal numbers. While at University of California, Los Angeles his colleagues remember him as working hard to accommodate Doctor of Philosophy students of all levels of ability by finding them projects of the appropriate difficulty. He was courted by Yale, and after some initial reluctance, he moved there in 1967.
He died of pancreatic cancer in 1974.
Member fluid motion committee Aeronautical. Served with Free French Air Forces, 1940-1942. Fellow American Academy Arts and Sciences.
Member National Academy Sciences, American, London mathematics societies, Association for Symbolic Logic (president 1968-1970).
Married Renee Kopel, January 30, 1944.