Verena Huber-Dyson

Verena Huber-Dyson
Born (1923-05-06)May 6, 1923
Naples, Italy
Died March 12, 2016(2016-03-12) (aged 92)
Bellingham, Washington
Other names Verena Huber, Verena Haefeli
Residence Switzerland, United States, Canada
Citizenship Swiss, United States, Canada
Fields logic, algebra
Institutions
Alma mater University of Zurich
Thesis Ein Dualismus als Klassifikationsprinzip in der abstrakten Gruppentheorie (1947)
Doctoral advisor Andreas Speiser
Spouses
Children

Verena Esther Huber-Dyson (May 6, 1923 – March 12, 2016) was a Swiss-American mathematician, known for work in group theory and formal logic.[1] She has been described as a "brilliant mathematician",[1] and has done research on the interface between algebra and logic, focusing on undecidability in group theory. At the time of her death she was emeritus faculty in the philosophy department of the University of Calgary, Alberta.

Life and Career

Huber-Dyson was born Verena Esther Huber in Naples, Italy, on May 6, 1923, to Charles and Berthy Huber of Zurich, Switzerland.[2] She grew up in Athens, greece, where she attended the German School of Athens. At the outbreak of World War II, the family returned to Zurich. She studied mathematics, with minors in physics and philosophy, at the University of Zurich.

In 1942 she married Hans-Georg Haefeli, a fellow mathematician, in 1942.[3] Her first daughter, Katarina, was born in 1945.[3][4] Huber (then Haefeli) earned her Ph.D. in mathematics in 1947 from the University of Zurich under the supervision of Andreas Speiser, with a dissertation on finite group theory.[5][6][7] Huber-Dyson then accepted a postdoctoral fellow appointment at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton,[8] where she worked on group theory and formal logic.[3][4] She also began teaching at Goucher College near Baltimore during this time.[2]

Haefeli and Huber-Dyson divorced amicably in 1948. She subsequently married Freeman Dyson in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on August 11, 1950.[6] They had two children together, Esther Dyson (born July 14, 1951, in Zurich) and George Dyson (born 1953, Ithaca, New York)[1][6] and divorced in 1958.[4][9] She moved to California with her daughter Katarina, began teaching at San Jose State University in 1959, and then joined Alfred Tarski's Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science at the University of California, Berkeley.[4][10]

Huber-Dyson taught at San Jose State University, the University of Zürich, University of Monash, as well as at UC Berkeley, Adelphi University, UCLA, and the University of Illinois, in mathematics and in philosophy departments. She accepted a position in the philosophy department of the University of Calgary in 1973, becoming emerita in 1988.[11] She died on March 12, 2016 in Bellingham, Washington, at the age of 92.[12][13]

Selected publications

Books

Articles

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Nicholas Dawidoff, "The Civil Heretic", New York Times, March 29, 2009.
  2. 1 2 Schewe, p.72.
  3. 1 2 3 Schewe, p.70.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Anita Burdman Feferman and Solomon Feferman, Alfred Tarski: Life and Logic, pp. 272–276.
  5. ↑ Ein Dualismus als Klassifikationsprinzip in der abstrakten Gruppentheorie (dissertation).
  6. 1 2 3 John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson, Freeman Dyson, The MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St. Andrews Scotland (last visited March 14, 2014).
  7. ↑ Verena Huber-Dyson at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  8. ↑ Directory, A Community of Scholars: Institute for Advanced Study, Institute for Advanced Study (last visited March 14, 2014).
  9. ↑ See generally Phillip F. Schewe, Maverick Genius: The Pioneering Odyssey of Freeman Dyson, Chapters 5–8.
  10. ↑ Verena Huber-Dyson, "Gödel in a Nutshell", Edge, May 13, 2006.
  11. ↑ Schewe, p.287.
  12. ↑ John Brockman (March 13, 2016). "Verena Huber-Dyson". Edge. Retrieved March 15, 2016.
  13. ↑ "Obiturary of Verena Huber-Dyson". Retrieved April 28, 2016.

References

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