Mathematician:George David Birkhoff

Mathematician

American mathematician best known for what is now known as the Ergodic Theorem.

The father of Garrett Birkhoff.

Nationality

American

History

• Born: 21 March 1884, Overisel, Michigan
• Died: 12 November 1944, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Theorems and Definitions

• Chromatic Polynomial
• Birkhoff's Axioms
• Birkhoff's Theorem (Relativity)
• Birkhoff's Theorem (Electromagnetism)
• Birkhoff's Ergodic Theorem
• Birkhoff-Grothendieck Theorem (with Alexander Grothendieck)
• Poincaré-Birkhoff-Witt Theorem (with Henri Poincaré and Ernst Witt)
• Birkhoff Interpolation
• Equidistribution Theorem

Results named for George David Birkhoff can be found here.

Definitions of concepts named for George David Birkhoff can be found here.

Axioms named for George David Birkhoff can be found here.

Publications

• July 1904: On the Integral Divisors of $a^n-b^n$ (Ann. Math. Vol. 5: pp. 173 – 180) (with Harry Schultz Vandiver)  www.jstor.org/stable/2007263
• 1906: General mean value and remainder theorems with applications to mechanical differentiation and quadrature
• 1907: Asymptotic Properties of Certain Ordinary Differential Equations with Applications to Boundary Value and Expansion Problems (PhD thesis)
• 1913: Proof of Poincaré's geometric theorem
• 1917: Dynamical Systems with Two Degrees of Freedom
• 1923: Relativity and Modern Physics (with R.E. Langer)
• 1927: Dynamical Systems
• 1931: Proof of the ergodic theorem
• 1932: A Set of Postulates for Plane Geometry, Based on Scale and Protractor (Ann. Math. Vol. 33, no. 2: pp. 329 – 345)  www.jstor.org/stable/1968336
• 1933: Aesthetic Measure
• 1937: Representability of Lie algebras and Lie groups by matrices
• 1938: Electricity as a Fluid
• 1941: Basic Geometry (which contains Birkhoff's Axioms)

Sources

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "George David Birkhoff": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive

• 1989: Ephraim J. Borowski and Jonathan M. Borwein: Dictionary of Mathematics ... (previous) ... (next): Birkhoff, George David (1884-1944)
• 2014: Christopher Clapham and James Nicholson: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (5th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Birkhoff, George David (1884-1944)