Paul Garabedian
Oral History (pdf)
Interviewer: Philip Davis
Abstract:
Paul Garabedian talks with Phil Davis about a range of topics, both mathematical
and personal, in this two-part interview. Garabedian grew up in an academic
family: his father earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at Harvard under G.D. Birkhoff
and his mother had a Masters in history from the same institution. His
father passed on his two passions, music and mathematics, to Paul, and encouraged
him to consider a career in mathematics as early as age ten.
After initially
being rejected from Harvard as a sixteen year old, Garabedian instead
attended Brown, which boasted a world-class faculty, including R.G.D.
Richardson and William Feller. It was at Brown that Garabedian
met his longtime (and current) colleague and collaborator, Frances
Bauer. Garabedian
eventually made it to Harvard, receiving his PhD there for work he did
under Lars Ahlfors on Szegö kernel functions and Robinson’s
conjecture. Garabedian
also worked extensively with Max Schiffer, however, and learned much
from his role facilitating communications between the two men. He
then went to Stanford, where he worked on a grant secured by Al Bowker. Garabedian
brought Schiffer and Stefan Bergman to Stanford as well. He left
several years later for the Courant Institute, where he has remained
ever since.
Garabedian has worked in numerous areas, including transonic flow, which
was spurred by questions from David Young at Ramo-Woolridge, which was
working on ICBMs. He attributes part of his early success to the
work of his first wife, Gladys, who was a programmer that went on to
have a long career at IBM. Indeed,
Garabedian tells about how he didn't realize that creating a program
that worked first time around was a very unusual outcome. He has
also worked on the Bieberbach Conjecture. Garabedian attributes his success
to luck and lots of hard work. He has had a number of outstanding
students, whom he credits for contributing to his success, especially
during the 1970s and 1980s. Garabedian
also remarks that teaching is crucial to his productivity in research. Davis
and Garabedian briefly discuss a mutual acquaintance, Clifford Gardner.
Key words: complex analysis, Bierberbach conjecture, hydrodynamics, shock waves, transonic flow, magneto-hydrodynamics, fusion
Funding Agency: Office of Naval Research
Time frame: 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, 1970's,
1980's, 1990's
People: G.D. Birkhoff, R.G.D. Richardson, Lars Ahlfors,
Max Schiffer, Stefan Bergman, Henry L. Garabedian, Garrett Birkhoff,
Carl de Boor, Gladys Garabedian, Walter Gautschi, Al Bowker, David
Young, Clifford Gardner, J. J. Stoker, Eleazer Bromberg, David Korn,
Octavio Betancourt, Frances Bauer, Hassler Whitney
Location: Brown University, Harvard University,
Stanford University, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New
York University, Ramo-Woolridge Corporation
Citation: Paul Garabedian, Oral history interview
by Philip Davis, 14 November, 2004 and 2 May, 2005, Courant Institute.
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Philadelphia, PA
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