Daniel Kleitman

American mathematician (born 1934) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Daniel Kleitman

Daniel J. Kleitman (born October 4, 1934)[1][2][3] is an American mathematician and professor of applied mathematics at MIT. His research interests include combinatorics, graph theory, genomics, and operations research.

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Kleitman

Biography

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Kleitman was born in 1934 in Brooklyn, New York,[1] the younger of Bertha and Milton Kleitman's two sons. His father was a lawyer who after WWII became a commodities trader and investor. In 1942 the family moved to Morristown, New Jersey,[4] and he graduated from Morristown High School in 1950.[1]

Kleitman then attended Cornell University, from which he graduated in 1954,[1] and received his PhD in Physics from Harvard University in 1958 under Nobel Laureates Julian Schwinger and Roy Glauber.[5] He is the "k" in G. W. Peck, a pseudonym for a group of six mathematicians that includes Kleitman. Formerly a physics professor at Brandeis University,[6] Kleitman was encouraged by Paul Erdős to change his field of study to mathematics. Perhaps humorously, Erdős once asked him, "Why are you only a physicist?"[1]

Kleitman joined the applied mathematics faculty at MIT in 1966, and was promoted to professor in 1969.[6]

Kleitman coauthored at least six papers with Erdős, giving him an Erdős number of 1.

He was a math advisor and extra for the film Good Will Hunting.[7] Since Minnie Driver, who appeared in Good Will Hunting, also appeared in Sleepers with Kevin Bacon, Kleitman has a Bacon number of 2. Adding the two numbers results in an Erdős–Bacon number of 3, which is a tie with Bruce Reznick for the lowest number anyone has.[8]

In 1973 Kleitman was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[9]

In 2024 Kleitman was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences.[10]

Personal life

On July 26, 1964 Kleitman married Sharon Ruth Alexander. They have three children.[1]

Selected publications

See also

References

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