A Russian mathematician and one of the most influential algebraic geometers of the 20th century.
Background
Ethnicity:
Oscar Zariski was born in a Jewish family. His parents were Bezalel Zaritsky and Hanna Tennenbaum, who lived in Kobrin, Brestskaya Voblasts', Belarus, which was the part of a Russian Empire.
Zariski was born on the territory of Russian Empire in Kobrin. Studied in 1918 at the University of Kiev. He left Kiev in 1920 to study in Rome where he became a disciple of the Italian school of algebraic geometry, studying with Guido Castelnuovo, Federigo Enriques and Francesco Severi. Helped by Lefschetz, he escaped from the political problems of Italy in 1927 and went to the United States and He became a full professor at Johns Hopkins in 1937.
Education
In early childhood Oscar's mother ensured her son that he had a good education. When he was seven he began to study with a tutor, thanks to whom the child showed outstanding aptness for the Russian language and for arithmetic. When World War II had appeared on the territory of his fatherland, Oscar's family moved to Chernigov in the Ukraine.
Insofar as all places were full in the faculty of mathematics at the University of Kiev, he chose philosophy instead and had been studying there since 1918 till 1920. Above all he was able to pursue his mathematical interests and studied algebra and number theory in addition to philosophy.
In January 1918 Ukraine had become an independent state with Kiev as its capital. Dozens war events followed by World War II, that made life impossible for living and Zarisky came over to Italy.
In Rome Zariski came under the influence of the great algebraic geometers Castelnuovo, Enriques and Severi. There he got a doctoratefrom Rome in 1924 for a doctoral thesis on a topic related to Galois theory which was proposed to him by Castelnuovo. Tere in Rome Enriques suggested to Ascher Zaritsky to change his name to the Italian sounding Oscar Zariski. On the first publication Zarisky used his new name.
The Fascist hatred of Jews made life for Zariski, because of his Jewish background, particularly difficult. Due to Lefschetz in 1927 he woved to United States, where he joined the Faculty of Johns Hopkins University, being a Johnston Scholar until 1929. He became a full professor at Johns Hopkins in 1937.
He had a position at Johns Hopkins University where he became professor in 1937. During this period, he wrote Algebraic Surfaces as a summation of the work of the Italian school. The book was published in 1935 and reissued 36 years later, with detailed notes by Zariski's students that illustrated how the field of algebraic geometry had changed. It is still an important reference.
An important year for Zariski was 1946 which he spent in São Paolo. There he gave a lecture course three days each week which was attended by André Weil and nobody else. After spending a year 1946–1947 at the University of Illinois, Zariski became professor at Harvard University in 1947 where he remained until his retirement in 1969. Zariski made Harvard a world center for algebraic geometry in much the same way that Lefschetz made Princeton a world center for topology.
Zariski was a Jewish socialist with Communist sympathies.
Membership
American Mathematical Journal
,
United States
1937 - 1941
Transactions of the American Mathematical Society
,
United States
1941 - 1947
Personality
Oscar Zariski is hospitable and domestic. He loves children and is a good parent. He is romantic, faithful and very protective.
He has a good sense of justice. He does everything in his power to keep the harmony and is even willing to sacrifice his personal desires for the good of others.
Oscar attracts many people who are in need of comfort, including the disadvantaged.
Interests
music, flowers, gardening
Connections
In 1924 Oscar married Yole Cagli, an Italian literature student. The couple lived in Rome, at first in a rented apartment and later with Yole's parents; their first child was born in 1925.
Father:
Bezalel Zaritsky
Mother:
Hanna Tennenbaum
Brother:
Moshe Zaritsky
Sister:
Tsilla Labunsky (Zaritsky)
Sister:
Tzipa Solowejczyk (Zaritsky)
Sister:
Fanya Solowejczyk (Zaritsky)
Sister:
Rivka Kosowsky (Zaritsky)
Brother:
Shabtai Zaritsky
References
The Unreal Life of Oscar Zariski
Oscar Zariski’s work in mathematics permanently altered the foundations of algebraic geometry. The powerful tools he forged from the ideas of modern algebra allowed him to penetrate classical problems with an unaccustomed depth, and brought new rigor to the intuitive proofs of the Italian School. The students he trained at Hopkins, and later at Harvard, are among the foremost mathematicians of our time. While what he called his “real life” is recorded in almost a hundred books and papers, this story of his “unreal life” is based upon Parikh’s interviews with his family, colleagues, and students, and on his own memories from a series of tape-recorded interviews made a few years before his death in 1986. First published in 1991, The Unreal Life of Oscar Zariski was highly successful and widely praised, but has been out of print for many years. Springer is proud to make this book available again, introducing Oscar Zariski to a new generation of mathematicians.