Dr. Alberto Pedro Calderón was born in Mendoza, Argentina, 9/14/1920, where, at a young age, he showed an immediate aptitude for the field of Mathematics. Pressured by his father, he graduated from the University of Bueno Aires with a BS (1947) in Civil Engineering. He began working at the state-owned oil company Yacimenotos Petroliferos Fiscalas (YPF) applying mathematics to design and use geophysical instrumentations. Although it would not be published until 1980, it was here at YPF that Alberto began his mathematical research journey into what would later become known as the field of “Inverse Problems” mathematics.
Upon resigning from YPF in 1948 due a Director not being thrilled with his reading and studying of math on the side, he took a small position at the Institute of Mathematics. During a visiting lecture series in 1949 by his future mentor Antoni Zygmund, he impressed Zygmund by his new proof of the Reisz Theorem. This led to him receiving a Rockefeller Scholarship after being invited to study at the University of Chicago with Zygmund. He published 2 manuscripts with Zygmund and 3 additional manuscripts, which led to his PhD in 1950.
Alberto and Antoni would go on to collaborate together for more than 40 years until 1992. During this time, they opened the Chicago School of hard analysis, where they made incredible waves in applied mathematics through advancements in algebra and calculus. His theory of singular integrals would go on to advance research in probability theory, physics, and engineering. He held positions at Ohio State University (1950 -1943), Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (1954-1955), MIT (1955-1959; 1972- 1975), and University of Chicago again (1959 – 1972; 1975-1985, 1989 – 1992).
He had numerous awards and accolades. He was awarded the Bôcher Prize (1979) and Steele Prize (1979) by the American Mathematical Society. He was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1957), the National Academy of Sciences of the US (1968), the Latin American Academy of Sciences (1983), the French Academy of Sciences (1984), and The President’s National Medal of Science (1998) in Mathematics and Computer Science. He published 80 manuscripts, graduated 27 PhDs, and helped Argentinians obtain degrees in Chicago. Alberto died at the age of 77 in 1998 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Sources
- https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/calderon-alberto-pedro
- https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Calderon/
- https://celebratio.org/Calderon_AP/article/396/
- https://chronicle.uchicago.edu/980430/calderon.shtml
- https://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/20/us/alberto-calderon-77-pioneer-of-mathematical-analysis.html
- https://nationalmedals.org/laureate/alberto-p-calderon/
- https://www.ams.org/notices/199809/mem-calderon.pdf
Feature Image Sourse: Fair Use, University of Chicago
http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/98/images/calderon2.jpg
