Mathematician:Gian-Carlo Rota

Mathematician

Italian-American mathematician and philosopher who worked in combinatorics, functional analysis, probability theory, and phenomenology.

Nationality

Italian-American

History

• Born: April 27, 1932 in Vigevano, Italy
• Died: April 18, 1999 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.

Theorems and Definitions

• Kallman-Rota Inequality (with Robert R. Kallman)
• Rota's Conjecture
• Rota's Basis Conjecture
• Rota-Baxter Algebra (with Glen Earl Baxter)

Results named for Gian-Carlo Rota can be found here.

Definitions of concepts named for Gian-Carlo Rota can be found here.

Publications

• 1956: Extension Theory Of Ordinary Linear Differential Operators

• 1959: Ordinary Differential Equations (with Garrett Birkhoff)
  • 1962: Ordinary Differential Equations, 2nd ed. (with Garrett Birkhoff)
  • 1978: Ordinary Differential Equations, 3rd ed. (with Garrett Birkhoff)

• 1961: Founded the journal Advances in Mathematics

• 1992: Discrete Thoughts (with Mark Kac and Jacob T. Schwartz)

Notable Quotes

In mathematics, as anywhere today, it is becoming more difficult to tell the truth. To be sure, our store of accurate facts is more plentiful now than it has ever been ... Unfortunately, telling the truth is not quite the same as reciting a rosary of facts.

-- Introduction to Discrete Thoughts, by Mark Kac, Gian-Carlo Rota and Jacob T. Schwartz ($1985$)

Sources

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "Gian-Carlo Rota": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive

• 1996: Winfried Just and Martin Weese: Discovering Modern Set Theory. I: The Basics ... (previous) ... (next): How to Read this Book