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Franz Alt (mathematician)

Franz Alt
Born (1910-11-30)November 30, 1910
Vienna, Austria
Died July 21, 2011(2011-07-21) (aged 100)
New York, New York, United States
Residence America
Nationality Austrian-American
Fields Mathematics
Computer Science
Alma mater University of Vienna
Academic advisors Hans Hahn, Karl Menger

Franz Leopold Alt (November 30, 1910 – July 21, 2011) was an Austrian-born American mathematician who made major contributions to computer science in its early days. He was best known as one of the founders of the Association for Computing Machinery, and served as its president from 1950 to 1952.

Alt was born in Vienna, Austria on November 30, 1910 to a secular Jewish family. He received a PhD in mathematics in 1932 from the University of Vienna, with a thesis entitled "Metrische Definition der Krümmung einer Kurve" ("Metrical Definition of the Curvature of a Curve"). His principal teachers were Hans Hahn and Karl Menger. He was one of the regular participants in, and contributors to, Menger’s “Mathematisches Kolloquium.” [Afterword, Karl Menger, Ergebnisse eines Mathematischen Kolloquiums, Springer-Verlag/Wien, 1998] Alt engaged in research in set-theoretic topology and logical foundations of geometry.

In addition, in the next few years he became interested in econometrics, stimulated by Oskar Morgenstern, then professor of economics at the University of Vienna, later at Princeton University. In 1936, Alt developed an axiomatic foundation for economic concepts, described in “Ueber die Messbarkeit des Nutzens,” which he presented at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Oslo (published in Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, VII/2, 1936; in German). The English translation of this paper was published as “On the Measurability of Utility” in Preferences, Utility, and Demand: A Minnesota Symposium (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971).


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