Abraham H. Taub

Abraham Taub
Born (1911-02-01)February 1, 1911
Chicago
Died August 9, 1999(1999-08-09)
Nationality American
Fields Mathematics
Physics
Institutions University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Alma mater Princeton University
Doctoral advisor Howard P. Robertson
Doctoral students C. William Gear
Gene Golub
Known for Taub Adiabat

Abraham Haskel Taub (February 1, 1911 – August 9, 1999) was a distinguished American mathematician and physicist, well known for his important contributions to the early development of general relativity, as well as differential geometry and differential equations. In a 1948 paper dealing with relativistic shock waves, he introduced a relativistic generalization of the Rankine-Hugoniot jump conditions across a shock, which is now known as the Taub Adiabat. He also introduced the Taub–NUT space in general relativity.

Taub earned his doctorate at Princeton University in 1935, under the direction of the prominent relativist Howard P. Robertson. At Princeton, Taub was also influenced by Oswald Veblen.

In 1948, Abe Taub went to the University of Illinois as the chief mathematician associated with a project to build a computer based on von Neumann's plans. The computer, called ORDVAC, was completed in 1952 and delivered to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. A second copy of the computer, ILLIAC I, remained at Illinois and was the prototype for several other computers. Taub was head of the Digital Computer Laboratory at Illinois from 1961 until 1964, when he moved to the University of California, Berkeley, as director of the Computer Center (1964–68).

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