Tobias Dantzig

Tobias Dantzig (February 19, 1884 – August 9, 1956) was a Baltic German Russian American mathematician, the father of George Dantzig, and the author of Number: The Language of Science (A critical survey written for the cultured non-mathematician) (1930) and Aspects of Science (New York, Macmillan, 1937).

Born in present-day Latvia (then Imperial Russia), Dantzig studied mathematics with Henri Poincaré in Paris.[1] Tobias married a fellow Sorbonne University student, Anja Ourisson, and the couple emigrated to the United States in 1910. He worked for a time as a lumberjack, road worker, and house painter in Oregon, until returning to academia at the encouragement of Reed College mathematician Frank Griffin.[1] Dantzig received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Indiana University in 1917, while working as a professor there.[2][1] He later taught at Johns Hopkins, Columbia University, and the University of Maryland.

Dantzig died in Los Angeles in 1956. He was the father of George Dantzig, a key figure in the development of linear programming. Continue Reading »

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