Karl Edwin Gustafson

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Karl Edwin Gustafson
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of Maryland
Academic work
DisciplineMathematics
Sub-disciplineApplied mathematics
InstitutionsUniversity of Colorado, Boulder
Websitehttps://euclid.colorado.edu/~gustafs/

Karl Edwin Gustafson is an American mathematician. Gustafson spent most of his career at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in the Department of Mathematics. He is known for developing the antieigenvalue theory in applied mathematics.

Education and career[edit]

Gustafson received two Bachelor of Science degrees from the University of Colorado in 1958 (Engineering Physics/Applied Mathematics and Business Finance) before a PhD in Mathematics in 1965 from the University of Maryland. He performed post-doctoral work in Switzerland and Italy as a recipient of an NSF-NATO grant, held an assistant professor position at the University of Minnesota, and then moved back to Colorado where he was Associate Professor and then Professor of Mathematics at the University of Colorado for over 50 years. He retired as Professor Emeritus in 2020.[1]

Scholarship[edit]

Gustafson published articles and books in many areas of mathematics, both applied and pure, and in physics and the mathematics of finance.[2] Early in his career he developed the antieigenvalue theory in the area of applied mathematics.[3] He returned to this topic in 2012 with a book exploring how the theory applies in the contexts of numerical analysis, wavelets, statistics, quantum mechanics, finance and optimization.[4] Gustafson wrote an introductory guide to partial differential equations (Introduction to Partial Differential Equations and Hilbert Space Methods) that was published in three editions in the United States[5][6][7] and in various versions in three foreign countries.[8][9][10] Gustafson also published academic books in other areas of mathematics[11] and in related subjects such as quantum mechanics[12] and fluid dynamics.[13][14] In 2022, he became the honoree of an endowed faculty chair at the University of Colorado. The funds for the chair came from an anonymous donor who was a former student of Gustafson's. The chair will be known as the Karl Gustafson Endowed Chair of Quantum Engineering and will be embedded in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering within the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, at Gustafson's request. Gustafson proposed that the chair be part of the College of Engineering in hopes that the faculty who hold the chair might have a "fundamental breakthrough in some way other than just writing papers," according to Gustafson.[15]

Other publications and pursuits[edit]

Gustafson also had many interests outside of academia. As a young rock climber in Colorado in the 1950s, Gustafson and colleagues were at the forefront of the sport of free climbing and completed several first ascents of local rock faces and mountain ridges in the area (North Face of The Matron, North Face of Schmoe's Nose and the Snowmass-Capitol Ridge).[16][17] Gustafson published a memoir in 2012, entitled The Crossing of Heaven, which recounted, among other life experiences, more of his mountaineering adventures and his role in top-secret (at the time) military intelligence work during the Cold War, including writing the software in 1960 for the first US spy satellite.[18] After surviving a hemorrhagic stroke in 2016, Gustafson wrote a second memoir, Reverberations of a Stroke, concerning his medical recovery and return to teaching mathematics at the university.[19]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Karl Gustafson". Department of Mathematics. September 29, 2016. Retrieved April 30, 2022.
  2. ^ Gustafson, Karl (2022). "Karl Gustafson, Department of Mathematics". University of Colorado, Boulder. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  3. ^ Gustafson, Karl (1968). "The angle of an operator and positive operator products". Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. 74 (3): 488–492. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1968-11974-3. ISSN 0273-0979. S2CID 121445437.
  4. ^ Gustafson, Karl (2012). Antieigenvalue analysis : with applications to numerical analysis, wavelets, statistics, quantum mechanics, finance and optimization. World Scientific Pub. Co. ISBN 978-981-4366-29-8. OCLC 921222071.
  5. ^ E., Gustafson, Karl (1980). Partial differential equations and Hilbert space methods. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-04089-4. OCLC 310838854.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. ^ Gustafson, Karl (1987). Introduction to Partial Differential Equations and Hilbert Space Methods, 2d edition. New York: Wiley. p. 438.
  7. ^ Gustafson, Karl (1999). Partial Differential Equations and Hilbert Space Methods, 3d edition (revised). New York: Dover. p. 472. ISBN 0-486-61271-6. OCLC 246284657.
  8. ^ Gustafson, Karl (1983). Introduction to Partial Differential Equations and Hilbert Space Methods. Taiwan: Yeh Yeh Publishers. p. 285.
  9. ^ Gustafson, Karl (1991–1992). Applied Partial Differential Equations 1 and 2. Japan: Kaigai. pp. 247 & 235.
  10. ^ Gustafson, Karl (1993). Introduction to Partial Differential Equations and Hilbert Space Methods, 3d edition. India: International Journal Services. p. 460.
  11. ^ E., Gustafson, Karl (1997). Numerical range : the field of values of linear operators and matrices. Springer. ISBN 0-387-94835-X. OCLC 34912671.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ Gustafson, Karl (1981). Quantum Mechanics in Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics. New York: Springer. p. 506.
  13. ^ Gustafson, Karl (1991). Vortex Methods and Vortex Motion. Philadelphia: SIAM. p. 227.
  14. ^ Gustafson, Karl (1997). Lectures on Computational Fluid Dynamics, Mathematical Physics, and Linear Algebra. Japan: Kaigai Publishers. p. 169.
  15. ^ Adams, Emily (February 1, 2022). "Honoree hopes new endowment will lead to quantum breakthrough". University of Colorado, Boulder, College of Engineering and Applied Science. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  16. ^ Gustafson, Karl (1952). "The Snowmass-Capitol Ridge". Trail and Timberline (Colorado Mountain Club). 404: 119–121.
  17. ^ Ament, Pat; McCarty, Cleve (1995). High Over Boulder. Boulder, Colorado: Two Lights Publishing. pp. 81, 97.
  18. ^ E., Gustafson, Karl (2012). The crossing of heaven : memoirs of a mathematician. Springer. ISBN 978-3-642-22558-1. OCLC 828889966.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  19. ^ GUSTAFSON, KARL (2020). REVERBERATIONS OF A STROKE. SPRINGER. ISBN 978-3-030-12864-7. OCLC 1164825312.

External links[edit]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Karl_Edwin_Gustafson&oldid=1220595354"