Irving Segal

Irving Ezra Segal (September 13, 1918–December 24, 1998) was a mathematician known for work on theoretical quantum mechanics.

He was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He shares credit for what is often referred to as the Segal-Shale-Weil distribution. Early in his career Segal became known for his developments in quantum field theory and in functional and harmonic analysis, in particular his innovation of the algebraic axioms known as C*-algebra.

Biography

Irving Ezra Segal was born in the Bronx in 1918. He attended school in Trenton. In 1934 was admitted to Princeton University at the age of 16. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, completed his undergraduate studies in just three years time, graduated with highest honors with a Bachelors in 1937, and was awarded the George B. Covington Prize in Mathematics. He was then admitted to Yale, and in another three years time had completed his doctorate, receiving his PhD in 1940. Segal taught at Harvard University, then he joined the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton on a Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, working from 1941-43 with Albert Einstein and Von Neumann. During World War 2 Segal served in the U.S. Army conducting research in ballistics at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. He joined the mathematics department at the University of Chicago in 1948 where we served until 1960. In 1960 he joined the mathematics department at M.I.T. where he remained as a professor until his death in 1998. He won three Guggenheim Fellowships, in 1947, 1951 and 1967, and received the Humboldt Award in 1981. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1973.

Edward Nelson's Segal obituary article concludes: "...It is rare for a mathematician to produce a life work that at the time can be fully and confidently evaluated by no one, but the full impact of the work of Irving Ezra Segal will become known only to future generations."

Obituary in Americal Mathematical Society Notices: [http://www.ams.org/notices/199906/mem-segal.pdf]