Mathematician:Mark Kac
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Mathematician
Polish American mathematician whose main interests were probability theory and spectral theory.
Nationality
Polish-American
History
- August 3, 1914 in Kremenets, in what was then the Russian Empire (now Krzemieniec in Ukraine)
- October 26, 1984 in California
Theorems and Inventions
- Feynman-Kac Formula (with Richard Phillips Feynman)
- Erdős-Kac Theorem (with Paul Erdős)
- Kac-Bernstein Theorem (with Sergei Natanovich Bernstein)
- Kac's Lemma
Results named for Mark Kac can be found here.
Definitions of concepts named for Mark Kac can be found here.
Publications
- 1958: Mathematics and Logic: Retrospect and Prospects (with Stanisław Ulam)
- 1959: Statistical Independence in Probability, Analysis and Number Theory
- 1959: Probability and related topics in the physical sciences
- 1985: Enigmas of Chance: An Autobiography
- 1992: Discrete Thoughts (with Gian-Carlo Rota and Jacob T. Schwartz)
Notable Quotes
- W. A. Hurwitz used to say that in teaching on an elementary level one must tell the truth, nothing but the truth, but not the whole truth.
- -- Introduction to Discrete Thoughts, by Mark Kac, Gian-Carlo Rota and Jacob T. Schwartz ($1976$)
Also known as
His name at birth was Marek Kac.
His surname is pronounced Kahts.
Sources
- 1996: Winfried Just and Martin Weese: Discovering Modern Set Theory. I: The Basics ... (previous) ... (next): How to Read this Book