Background
Yudell Luke was born in Kansas City, Missouri, United States. on 26 June 1918 to Jewish parents. His father, David Luke, was sexton of Congregation Kerem Israel Beth Shalom.
Yudell Luke was born in Kansas City, Missouri, United States. on 26 June 1918 to Jewish parents. His father, David Luke, was sexton of Congregation Kerem Israel Beth Shalom.
The young Luke attended the Kansas City Missouri Junior College, graduating in 1937.
Luke published eight books and nearly 100 papers in a wide variety of mathematical areas, ranging from aeronautics to approximation theory. By his own estimation, Luke reviewed over 1,800 papers and books throughout his career. He read mathematics at the University of Illinois, receiving a Bachelors in 1939, and a Masters the following year.
He then taught at the university for two years, but was called up for World World War II military service in 1942.
Luke served in the United States Navy until 1946 and was stationed in Hawaii for the duration of the war. They moved to Kansas City in 1946 and had four daughters, Molly, Janis, Linda, and Debra, and established the Yudell and LaVerne Luke Senior Adult Transportation Fund at the Kansas City Jewish Community Center.
Soon after Luke moved to Kansas City, he was appointed to MRIGlobal (formerly Midwest Research Institute). His first position was as Head of the Mathematical Analysis Section, a position he held until his promotion to Senior Advisor for Mathematics in 1961.
Luke also held posts at other universities.
In 1955, he became a lecturer at the University of Missouri–Kansas City, and he also taught at the University of Kansas. He then became Curator"s Professor at Missouri in 1978. In 1982, an exchange programme between the University of Missouri and the University of Moscow was formed, and the following year, Luke travelled to Moscow to lecture on a series of topics as part of the programme, including special functions, asymptotic analysis and approximation theory.
He died while in Russia on 6 May 1983.
Luke had a wide range of interests outside mathematics, including basketball, baseball, bridge, and cribbage. He wrote two books on the probabilities of winning at the latter.
He also expressed interest in opera and philosophy, and once gave a series of lectures on the history of philosophy, mainly focusing on Baruch Spinoza"s ideas. O"Connor, John Jay; Robertson, Edmund F., "Yudell Luke", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of Street Andrews.
Gautschi, Walter; Wimp, Jet (1984).
"In memoriam: Yudell L. Luke, 26 June 1918 – 6 May 1983". Mathematics Company 43 (168): 349–352. doi:10.1090/s0025-5718-1984-0758187-6. JSTOR 2008280.