Joseph Gillis

Joseph E. Gillis (3 August 1911 – 18 November 1993) was a British-Israeli mathematician and one of the founders of the Faculty of Mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he served as a Professor of Applied Mathematics. He made notable contributions to fractal sets, fluid dynamics, random walks, and pioneered the combinatorial theory of special functions of mathematical physics.[1]

Joseph E. Gillis
Born(1911-08-03)3 August 1911
Sunderland, Great Britain
Died18 November 1993(1993-11-18) (aged 82)
Rehovot, Israel
NationalityBritish and Israeli
Alma materCambridge University
SpouseOlga Kirsch
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsWeizmann Institute of Science
Doctoral advisorAbram Samoilovitch Besicovitch
Notable studentsAchi Brandt

Career

Gillis was born on 3 August 1911 in Sunderland, in the north east of England. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, completing his doctoral thesis on "Some Geometrical Properties of Linearly Measurable Plane Sets of Points" under A.S. Besicovitch in 1935.[2][3] During World War II he worked in Bletchley Park as a cryptographer. He taught maths at Queen's University Belfast[4] between 1937 and 1947.[4]

In 1948 he immigrated to Israel and joined the Weizmann Institute of Science (then the Ziv Institute), where he, along with others, founded the Department of Applied Mathematics. He also served as the Academic Secretary. During the Academic Year 1954-1955 he visited the Institute for Advanced Study as part of the Electronic Computer Project headed by John von Neumann. He was very active in advancing mathematics education, and chaired the department of Science Teaching at the Weizmann Institute. He also started the Israel Mathematics Olympiad and coached the Israeli team for many years, as well as edited mathematics periodicals for high school students and amateurs.[5]

Personal life

He was married to Olga Kirsch and had two daughters. He died on 18 November 1993.[6]

References
  1. How Joe Gillis discovered combinatorial special function theory Doron Zeilberger, May 20, 1994
  2. Joseph Gillis at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  3. Reeds, James A.; Diffie, Whitfield; Field, J. V. (1945). Breaking Teleprinter Ciphers at Bletchley Park: An edition of I.J. Good, D. Michie and G. Timms: General Report on Tunny with Emphasis on Statistical Methods. John Wiley & Sons, 2015. p. 551. ISBN 9781119061625.
  4. Hannigan, Robert (26 January 2017). "The secret story of the Jewish codebreakers who helped win the war". The JC. Retrieved 6 September 2018.
  5. The Yosef Gillis National Youth Mathematics Olympiad Weizmann Institute of Science [in Hebrew]
  6. "Joseph Gillis, Mathematician, 82". New York Times. 20 November 1993. Retrieved 3 January 2015.
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