Gabor Szegő - (b. 1/20/1895 Kunhegyes, Hungary, d.: 8/7/85 Palo Alto, California)
Mathematician: Head of University of Stanford Mathematics
Szegő received his Ph.D. in Vienna in 1918. After teaching at the Technical School of Budapest and the University of Berlin, he went to the University of Koenigsberg where he was Professor of Mathematics from 1926 to 1934. With the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany in the 1930's, it became necessary for him to leave. By this time an analyst of great stature, he was offered a temporary position at Washington University in 1934.
During the years 1934-1936, he was supported by a Rockefeller Foundation Grant, matched by The Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars, and for the next two years by contributions from local philanthropists. Szego remained at Washington University until 1938, when he accepted an offer to become Head of the Mathematics Department at Stanford. Szego remained at Stanford until his retirement in 1960. Szegö's most important work was in the area of Orthogonal Polynomials and Toeplitz matrices.
The bust in Stanford's courtyard is one of two copies of the original sculpture (located in front of the Town Library in his city of birth, Kunhegyes, Hungary). Contributions from mathematics alumni and faculty made the bust possible, and it was dedicated in a ceremony on May 8, 1997. The other copy of the original is at Stanford University.
Biography:
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Szego.html
Books:
Beiträge zur Theorie der Toeplitzschen Formen (Berlin, 1920);
Problems and Theorems in Analysis I: Series, Integral Calculus, Theory of Functions (Classics in Mathematics) by George Polya, Gabor Szegö; Springer; 1 edition (March 17, 2004);
Problems and Theorems in Analysis. Volume II : Theory of Functions. Zeros. Polynomials. Determinants. Number Theory. Geometry (Classics in Mathematics)
by George Polya, Gabor Szegö; Springer; 1 edition (November 10, 2004);
Orthogonal polynomials (New York, 1939);
Isoperimetric inequalities in mathematical physics (with György Pólya, Princeton, 1951);
Collected Papers (I-II-III. kötet, Birkhäuser, 1982).
Articles:
R. Askey and P. Nevai, Gábor Szegö: 1895-1985, The Mathematical Intelligencer 18 (3) (1996), 10-22.;
P. Nevai, Gábor Szegö centenary, Notices Amer. Math. Soc. 42 (6) (1995), 682.
Autorithy:
Nobel Prize Winners & Famous Hungarians / Science, Mathematics, & Technology