- Edward Nelson
Edward Nelson (born
May 4 1932 , inDecatur, Georgia ) is a professor in the Mathematics Department atPrinceton University . He is known for his work onmathematical physics andmathematical logic . In mathematical logic, he is noted especially for hisinternal set theory .Career
Nelson received his Ph.D. in 1955 from the
University of Chicago , where he worked withIrving Segal .He was a member of theInstitute for Advanced Study from 1956–1959. He has held a position atPrinceton University from 1959 to the present, attaining the rank of professor there in 1964.Early work
Nelson has made contributions to the theory of infinite dimensional
group representation s, the mathematical treatment ofquantum field theory , the use ofstochastic process es inquantum mechanics , and the reformulation ofprobability theory in terms ofnon-standard analysis .For many years he worked on
mathematical physics and probability theory, and still has a residual interest in these fields, particularly in possible extensions of stochastic mechanics to field theory.Work on foundations
In recent years he has been working on mathematical logic and the foundations of mathematics. One of his goals is to extend IST (
Internal Set Theory —a version of a portion ofAbraham Robinson 'snonstandard analysis ) in a natural way to include external functions and sets, in a way that provides an external function with specified properties unless there is a finitary obstacle to its existence. Other work centers on fragments of arithmetic, studying the divide between those theories interpretable in Raphael Robinson's Arithmetic and those that are not; computational complexity, including the problem of whether P is equal to NP or not; and automated proof checking.External links
* [http://www.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/ Edward Nelson's Homepage]
References
* [http://math.princeton.edu/~nelson/cv.pdf Curriculum Vitae]
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