Victor Klee

Victor Klee
Born(1925-09-18)September 18, 1925
San Francisco, California, U.S.
DiedAugust 17, 2007(2007-08-17) (aged 81)
Lakewood, Ohio, U.S.
EducationPomona College
University of Virginia (Ph.D.)
Known for
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsUniversity of Washington
ThesisConvex Sets in Linear Spaces (1949)
Doctoral advisorEdward James McShane
Doctoral studentsBernd Sturmfels
Robert Phelps

Victor LaRue Klee, Jr. (September 18, 1925 – August 17, 2007) was a mathematician specialising in convex sets, functional analysis, analysis of algorithms, optimization, and combinatorics. He spent almost his entire career at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Life

Born in San Francisco, Vic Klee earned his B.A. degree in 1945 with high honors from Pomona College, majoring in mathematics and chemistry. He did his graduate studies, including a thesis on Convex Sets in Linear Spaces, and received his PhD in mathematics from the University of Virginia in 1949. After teaching for several years at the University of Virginia, he moved in 1953 to the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, where he was a faculty member for 54 years.[1] He died in Lakewood, Ohio.

Research

Klee wrote more than 240 research papers. He proposed Klee's measure problem and the art gallery problem. Kleetopes are also named after him, as is the Klee–Minty cube,[2] which shows that the simplex algorithm for linear programming does not work in polynomial time in the worst–case scenario.

Service and recognition

Klee served as president of the Mathematical Association of America from 1971 to 1973.[1] In 1972 he won a Lester R. Ford Award.[3] In 1977, the MAA recognized Klee by presenting him with their Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics.[4]

Notes

  1. ^ a b Gritzmann, Peter; Sturmfels, Bernd (April 2008). "Victor L. Klee 1925–2007" (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society. 55 (4). Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society: 467–473. ISSN 0002-9920.
  2. ^ Klee, Victor; Minty, George J. (1972). "How good is the simplex algorithm?". In Shisha, Oved (ed.). Inequalities III (Proceedings of the Third Symposium on Inequalities held at the University of California, Los Angeles, Calif., September 1–9, 1969, dedicated to the memory of Theodore S. Motzkin). New York-London: Academic Press. pp. 159–175. MR 0332165.
  3. ^ Klee, Victor (1971). "What is a convex set?". Amer. Math. Monthly. 78 (6): 616–631. doi:10.2307/2316569. JSTOR 2316569.
  4. ^ Botts, Truman (1977). "Award for Distinguished Service to Professor Victor Klee". The American Mathematical Monthly. 84 (2): 81–82. doi:10.1080/00029890.1977.11994293. ISSN 0002-9890.

Further reading