Peter Szüsz (11 November 1924 – 16 February 2008)[1] was a Serbian-Hungarian-American mathematician known[2] for his proof (1961) of the Gauss-Kuzmin Theorem, his work in probabilistic number theory, and his book with Andrew M. Rockett on Continued Fractions.[3][4]

Peter Szüsz (1974)

Early life

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Born in Novi Sad, Serbia, he grew up in Budapest, Hungary, attending the Eötvös József Gimnázium and beginning his life-long passions for chess,[5] music,[6] and mathematics. He was the son of Irma (née Oberson) and Felix Szusz. He had one brother, Adam (Allen Saunders). In 1944 he was drafted into forced labour service and sent to the Heidenau Lager at the copper mines near Bor,[7][8][9][10] but escaped from the Nazi SS death march to Cservenka and was hidden by the Gyulai family near Kula until the end of the war.[11]

Career

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After studying first electrical engineering and then mathematics at the University of Budapest, he became a Research Fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Science from 1950 to 1965, received his Ph.D. as a student of Pál Turán in 1951,[12] and became a Doctor of Science at the Academy in 1962. He fled communist Hungary in 1965, became a Full Professor of Mathematics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook (now Stony Brook University) in 1966 and retired in 1994.[13]

References

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  1. ^ "Peter Szüsz Obituary (2022) New York Times". Legacy.com. Retrieved 2022-03-28.
  2. ^ Volkmann, Bodo (2008). "On the death of Peter Szüsz" (PDF). Uniform Distribution Theory. 3 (1): 149–151.
  3. ^ Rockett, Andrew M.; Szüsz, Peter (1992). Continued Fractions. Singapore and Teaneck, NJ: World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-02-1052-6.
  4. ^ Niven, Ivan (January 1994). "Book Review of Continued Fractions by Andrew M. Rockett and Peter Szüsz" (PDF). Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. New Series. 30 (1): 109–111. doi:10.1090/S0273-0979-1994-00442-2.
  5. ^ His last listing in (US Chess Federation) Chess Life is on page 40 of the April 2009 issue in the "2008 Yearbook" section as holding the title of Master Solver awarded by the Society of U S Chess Problemists.
  6. ^ Jacobs, Konrad (1986). "Oberwolfach Photo Collection, Photo ID 4132". Oberwolfach Photo Collection. Retrieved 2022-03-31.
  7. ^ "DEGOB: National Committee for Attending Deportees". Retrieved 2022-03-22. Follow the link to "Labour Service" for more about the camps at Bor.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  8. ^ Andai, Ferenc (2003). Mint tank szólni: Bori történet [To Bear Witness: A Story of Bor]. Ab Ovo. ISBN 9639378178.
  9. ^ Andai, Ferenc (2020). In the Hour of Fate and Danger [English translation of "To Bear Witness: A Story of Bor" from Hungarian "Mint tank szólni: Bori történet"]. Azrieli series of Holocaust survivor memoirs. Series XII. Translated by Morry, Marietta; Muir, Lynda. Azrieli Foundation. ISBN 9781988065564.
  10. ^ Andai (2003), page 30 [Andai (2020), page 29], recalls him playing Mozart on a violin borrowed from Miklós Lorsi.
  11. ^ Andai (2003), pages 160-161 [Andai (2020), pages 183-184].
  12. ^ "Mathematics Genealogy Project : Peter Szüsz".
  13. ^ Volkmann (2008), page 149.