Carl R. de Boor (born 1937) is a German-American mathematician and professor emeritus at the
University of Wisconsin–MadisonThe University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
.
Born in Stolp, Germany (now, as part of Poland, called Słupsk), as the 7th of 8 children born to Werner (an anti-Nazi Lutheran minister) and Toni de Boor in 1937, he fled in 1945 with his family, settling eventually in
SchwerinSchwerin is a city in northern Germany and the capital of the state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern . The population, as of end of 2007, was 95,855.-History:...
, then part of East Germany. As a child, he was often ill, suffering from a variety of conditions.
Carl R. de Boor (born 1937) is a German-American mathematician and professor emeritus at the
University of Wisconsin–MadisonThe University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
.
Early life
Born in Stolp, Germany (now, as part of Poland, called Słupsk), as the 7th of 8 children born to Werner (an anti-Nazi Lutheran minister) and Toni de Boor in 1937, he fled in 1945 with his family, settling eventually in
SchwerinSchwerin is a city in northern Germany and the capital of the state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern . The population, as of end of 2007, was 95,855.-History:...
, then part of East Germany. As a child, he was often ill, suffering from a variety of conditions. In 1955, young Carl took advantage of the temporary political thaw following Stalin's death in 1953, obtained a 1-month visa to
West GermanyWest Germany is a common English name for the period of the Federal Republic of Germany between its' formation in May 1949 to German reunification in October 1990, when the German Democratic Republic was dissolved and the five states on its territory joined the Federal Republic of Germany,...
and biked there, then decided to stay when he learned there that his application to Humboldt University (in
East BerlinEast Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a de facto part of West Germany. Despite its status as part of an occupied city,...
) for the study of chemistry had been turned down (because of his poor performance in mathematics). However, Otto Friedrich (a brother of Carl's father's first wife) was willing and able to help him. Two years later, he met and fell in love with Otto's niece, Matilda Friedrich, the daughter of Carl Friedrich, the political scientist and constitutional scholar. With the support of the Friedrich family, Carl emigrated to the United States in 1959, learning English on his trip across the Atlantic (he could read
Beatrix PotterHelen Beatrix Potter was an English author, illustrator, mycologist and conservationist who was best known for her best-selling children's books that featured animal characters, such as Peter Rabbit....
when he boarded the boat).
Education and career
Having earned only a high school diploma after 3 and a half years of study at Hamburg University, de Boor entered Harvard as a graduate student of mathematics. After working for a year as a research assistant to
Garrett BirkhoffGarrett Birkhoff was an American mathematician.The mathematician George Birkhoff was his father.-Life:...
, he went to work for
General MotorsGeneral Motors Company, often known as simply GM, is a United States based automaker with headquarters in Detroit, Michigan. GM was the world's 18th largest corporate entity and third largest automaker as ranked by 2008 revenues on the Fortune Global 500. Ranked by global unit sales for 2008, it...
Research in
Warren, MichiganWarren is a city in Macomb County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 138,247, making Warren the largest city in Macomb County, the third most populous city in Michigan, and Metro Detroit's largest suburb....
, where he met splines. He received his first postgraduate degree, a Ph.D. from the
University of MichiganThe University of Michigan, Ann Arbor is a public research university located in the state of Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university, the flagship campus of the University of Michigan, and one of the top public universities in the world...
, in 1966, and then became an assistant professor at
Purdue UniversityPurdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six campuses within the Purdue University System...
. In 1972, he accepted a position as professor of mathematics and computer science at the
University of Wisconsin–MadisonThe University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
, working out of the UW's Army Math Research Center, which had
recently been bombedThe Sterling Hall Bombing that occurred on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus on August 24 1970 was committed by four young people as a protest against the University's research connections with the US military during the Vietnam War...
in opposition to the
Vietnam WarThe Vietnam War or the Second Indochina War was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1959 to 30 April 1975...
.
Research and teaching
A chief attraction of the UW job was the opportunity to work directly with
Isaac SchoenbergIsaac Jacob Schoenberg was a Romanian mathematician, known for his discovery of splines.He studied at the University of Iaşi, receiving his M.A. in 1922. From 1922 to 1925 he studied at the Universities of Berlin and Göttingen, working on a topic in analytic number theory suggested by Issai Schur...
, considered the father of splines, the piecewise polynomials de Boor would further develop. In particular, he formulated a relatively fast and numerically stable algorithm for calculating the values of
splineIn mathematics, a spline is a special function defined piecewise by polynomials.In interpolating problems, spline interpolation is often preferred to polynomial interpolation because it yields similar results, even when using low-degree polynomials, while avoiding Runge's phenomenon for higher...
s (used extensively in
computer-aided designComputer-aided design is the use of computer technology for the design of objects, real or virtual. CAD often involves more than just shapes...
and
computer graphicsComputer graphics are graphics created using computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of pictorial data by a computer....
), and advocated for the formulation of spline functions in terms of the basis splines, or
B-splineIn the mathematical subfield of numerical analysis, a B-spline is a spline function that has minimal support with respect to a given degree, smoothness, and domain partition...
s developed by
SchoenbergIsaac Jacob Schoenberg was a Romanian mathematician, known for his discovery of splines.He studied at the University of Iaşi, receiving his M.A. in 1922. From 1922 to 1925 he studied at the Universities of Berlin and Göttingen, working on a topic in analytic number theory suggested by Issai Schur...
and
CurryHaskell Brooks Curry was an American mathematician and logician. Curry is best known for his work in combinatory logic; while the initial concept of combinatory logic was based on a single paper by Moses Schönfinkel, much of the development was done by Curry. Curry is also known for Curry's...
.
He was a teacher, guiding numerous graduate students. He is the author of a number of works, including an introductory textbook on numerical analysis (with S.D. Conte) and a textbook on spline approximation. Carl has also worked with
MATLABMATLAB is a numerical computing environment and fourth generation programming language. Developed by The MathWorks, MATLAB allows matrix manipulation, plotting of functions and data, implementation of algorithms, creation of user interfaces, and interfacing with programs in other languages...
extensively over the years and is the author of the Spline Toolbox.
Carl de Boor retired from the
University of Wisconsin–MadisonThe University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
in 2003 and relocated to the Pacific Northwest, where he continues to work with colleagues on mathematical problems, and to travel. He currently lives on
Orcas IslandOrcas Island is the largest of the San Juan Islands, which are located in the northwestern corner of Washington state in San Juan County, Washington. Orcas Island is accessible by air or water. The Washington State Ferry route serving the San Juans from the mainland terminal at Anacortes,...
, in
WashingtonWashington is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the...
state, with his second wife,
Helen BeeHelen L. Bee is a psychologist who has authored several books on the subject of human development, including both child development and adult development.-Education:...
, author of numerous texts in human development, to whom he has been married since 1991. In addition to his emeritus status at the
University of Wisconsin–MadisonThe University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
, he is also an affiliated professor at the
University of WashingtonUniversity of Washington, founded in 1861, is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. UW is the largest university in the northwestern United States and one of the oldest public universities on the west coast. The university has three campuses, with its flagship campus...
.
de Boor has been listed as an ISI Highly Cited Author in Mathematics by the ISI Web of Knowledge, Thomson Scientific Company.
Awards
In 1997 he was elected to the
National Academy of SciencesThe National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine."The group holds a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code....
, and he received the 2003
National Medal of ScienceThe National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and...
in
mathematicsMathematics is the science and study of quantity, structure, space, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns, formulate new conjectures, and establish truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions....
. Other honors have included election to the
American Academy of Arts and SciencesThe American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
in 1987 and the
National Academy of EngineeringThe United States National Academy of Engineering , a private, non-profit institution that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
in 1993, honorary degrees from
Purdue UniversityPurdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six campuses within the Purdue University System...
and Technion (the Israel Institute of Technology), as well as membership in the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in Germany and the Polish Academy of Science. He won the
John Von NeumannJohn von Neumann was a Hungarian American mathematician who made major contributions to a vast range of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, continuous geometry, economics and game theory, computer science, numerical analysis, hydrodynamics John...
Prize from the
Society for Industrial and Applied MathematicsThe Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics was founded by a small group of mathematicians from academia and industry who met in Philadelphia in 1951 to start an organization whose members would meet periodically to exchange ideas about the uses of mathematics in industry. This meeting led...
in 1996.
Personal
Carl is a lover of music—especially classical, and more especially
Johann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organist whose ecclesiastical and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
-- walks, good food, and games of all sorts.
In 1981, he bought his first personal computer, an Apple II with 32KB of memory with an old reel-to-reel tape recorder hooked up to store programs. He required his children to write any computer games they wished to play. With them he wrote an accounting program for tracking his checkbook, which he kept using long after the kids went to college, though he had to edit the program to use the Z key for recording a new transaction when the R key finally wore out, as well as implementations of a number of his children's favorite board games.
He is a lover of the quirky and easily enthralled by art. He used to keep a print of the
The Garden of Earthly DelightsThe Garden of Earthly Delights is a triptych painted by the early Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch , housed in the Museo del Prado in Madrid since 1939. Dating between 1503 and 1504, when Bosch was about 50 years old, it is his best-known and most ambitious work...
in his dining room, to the distress of some of his children, and others.
Carl learned to play the
cornetThe cornet is a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet, distinguished by its conical bore, compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. It is not related to the medieval cornett or cornetto....
, as a child, to combat
asthmaAsthma is a predisposition to chronic inflammation of the lungs in which the airways are reversibly narrowed. Asthma affects 7% of the population of the United States, and 300 million worldwide...
. He was also fed a vast quantity of raw eggs, whipped with a sprinkle of sugar, supposedly to help strengthen him during his early, sickly years. As a father, he made his children eat such egg treats.
During his Madison years, he played the bass drum in the neighborhood 4th of July Parade, and each August celebrates his arrival in America, where he is a citizen.