Michael Fekete

Michael (Mihály) Fekete (Hebrew: מיכאל פקטה; 19 July 1886 – 13 May 1957) was a Hungarian-Israeli mathematician.^[1]

Michael Fekete
Fekete in 1940
Born	Mihály Fekete (1886-07-19)19 July 1886 Zenta, Austria-Hungary, (today Senta, Serbia)
Died	13 May 1957(1957-05-13) (aged 70) Jerusalem, Israel
Nationality	Israeli
Alma mater	University of Budapest
Known for	Fekete's lemma, Fekete polynomial
Awards	Israel Prize for Exact Sciences (1955)
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	Budapest University Hebrew University
Doctoral advisor	Lipót Fejér
Doctoral students	Aryeh Dvoretzky Michael Bahir Maschler Zeev Nehari Menahem Max Schiffer

Biography

Mathematics professor Michael Fekete, the Provost of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, with his water quota, during the siege of Jerusalem

Michael Fekete was born in Zenta, Austria-Hungary (today Senta, Serbia). He received his PhD in 1909 from the University of Budapest (later renamed Eötvös Loránd University). He studied under Lipót Fejér. After completing his PhD he switched to University of Göttingen, which was considered a mathematics hub. In 1914, he returned to the University of Budapest, where he attained the title of Privatdozent.^[2]

Fekete also worked as a private math tutor. Among his students was János Neumann. In 1922, Fekete published a paper together with Neumann on extremal polynomials, which was Neumann's first scientific paper.^[3] Fekete dedicated the majority of his scientific work to the transfinite diameter.

In 1928 Fekete immigrated to Mandate Palestine and was among the first instructors of the Institute of Mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.^[4] In 1929 he was promoted to professor, and eventually headed the institute, succeeding Edmund Landau and Adolf Abraham Halevi Fraenkel. He later became the dean of Natural Sciences, and between the years 1946–1948 he was Hebrew University Provost.

Among his students were Aryeh Dvoretzky and Michael Bahir Maschler.

Awards and recognition

In 1955, Fekete was awarded the Israel Prize for exact sciences.^[5]

See also

• Fekete problem
• Fekete polynomial
• Fekete–Szegő inequality
• Fekete's lemma
• Fekete constant

References

1. Rogosinski, W. W. (1958). "Obituary: Michael Fekete". Journal of the London Mathematical Society. Second Series. 33: 496–500. doi:10.1112/jlms/s1-33.4.496. ISSN 0024-6107. MR 0100535.
2. "Prof. Michael Fekete; 1886-1957". Israel Digest: A Bi-weekly Summary of News from Israel, Volumes 6-8. 1955. p. 8.
3. Hersh 2015, p. 168.
4. Joseph, Melnikov & Rentschler 2003.
5. "Israel Prize recipients in 1955 (in Hebrew)". cms.education.gov.il (Israel Prize official website). Archived from the original on June 12, 2012.

Literature

• Joseph, Anthony; Melnikov, Anna; Rentschler, Rudolf (2003). Studies in Memory of Issai Schur. New York: Springfield. ISBN 978-1-4612-0045-1.
• Hersh, Reuben (2015). Peter Lax, Mathematician. American Mathematical Soc. p. 168. ISBN 978-1-4704-1708-6.

External links

• Michael Fekete at the Mathematics Genealogy Project