Background
Stephen Smale was born on July 15, 1930, in Flint, Michigan, United States. His parents were Lawrence and Helen Smale. When Smale was five years old, his family moved to a small farm outside of Flint.
Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
Smale received Bachelor of Science, Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy in mathematics degrees from the University of Michigan, in 1952, 1953 and 1956 respectively.
116th St & Broadway, New York, NY 10027, United States
Smale worked at Columbia University from 1961.
Berkeley, California, United States
From 1964 Smale served at the University of California.
6045 S Kenwood Ave, Chicago, IL 60637, United States
Smale has worked at Toyota Technological Institute since 2002.
Fields Medal
Von Neumann Award
National Medal of Science
Stephen Smale and Indika Rajapakse
Andreas Christmann, Steve Smale, Kurt Jetter, Ding-Xuan Zhou
(It provides a theoretical approach to dynamical systems a...)
It provides a theoretical approach to dynamical systems and chaos written for a diverse student population among the fields of mathematics, science, and engineering.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0123820103/?tag=2022091-20
2003
mathematician scientist writer
Stephen Smale was born on July 15, 1930, in Flint, Michigan, United States. His parents were Lawrence and Helen Smale. When Smale was five years old, his family moved to a small farm outside of Flint.
Smale began his school education in a one-room schoolhouse. In high school Smale’s primary interest was chemistry, and for a while, he planned on a career in that field. In 1948 he enrolled at the University of Michigan planning to major in physics rather than chemistry. He did poorly in physics, however, and gradually drifted into mathematics because it was a subject in which he had always excelled. In 1953 he added Master of Science degree to the Bachelor of Science degree he had received the year before and, three years later, he received his doctor's degree from the University of Michigan.
For a period of about seven years, Smale worked on topological questions, a field that he later described as “very fashionable” at the time. Despite this attitude, his work on topology proved valuable.
Smale accepted an appointment as professor of mathematics at Columbia University in 1961, the same year he made a surprising decision to abandon his work in topology and begin research in a new field of dynamical systems. Dynamical systems refer to mathematical methods for dealing with changes that take place in some real or abstract system over time. For the next five years Smale vacillated among a number of mathematical fields, including the calculus of variations and infinite dimensional manifolds. Smale also decided to leave Columbia University and accepted a position as a professor of mathematics at the University of California in Berkeley in 1964 where he began to concentrate once again on dynamical systems.
In 1970 Smale experienced yet another career transformation that was prompted by a series of conversations he had with Gerard Debreu, a Nobel laureate in economics. From these conversations, Smale began to work on the applications of mathematical theory to economic systems.
In recent years, Smale has become interested in computer sciences. He has expressed an interest in bringing the mathematics used in this field into closer relationship with mainstream mathematics. Smale feels that establishing such a relationship may result in some revolutionary changes in the nature of mathematics itself.
Smale has been working as a professor at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago since 2002. Currently, he is also a Distinguished University Professor at the City University of Hong Kong.
(It provides a theoretical approach to dynamical systems a...)
2003Smale became politically active during his high-school years, organizing a protest against the omission of evolution from his biology class curriculum. The protest was not very successful. Smale was also a member of the Communist party during his college years and was very active in opposition to the Korean War. His primary motivation for staying in college was to avoid being drafted into fighting a war to which he was strongly opposed.
Smale is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the International Union of Mathematics and the American Mathematical Society. He is also a fellow of the Econometric Society.
Smale has a number of leisure interests including a large mineral collection and a forty-three-foot, ocean-going ketch.
Smale married Clara Davis in 1955. The marriage produced two children - Laura and Nat.