Richard "Dick" Askey | |
---|---|
Richard Askey in 1977
|
|
Born |
St. Louis, Missouri |
June 4, 1933
Nationality | American |
Fields | mathematics |
Institutions |
University of Chicago University of Wisconsin–Madison |
Alma mater |
Washington University in St. Louis Harvard University Princeton University |
Doctoral advisor | Salomon Bochner |
Doctoral students | James A. Wilson |
Known for |
Askey–Wilson polynomials Askey–Gasper inequality |
Richard "Dick" Allen Askey (born June 4, 1933) is an American mathematician, known for his expertise in the area of special functions. The Askey–Wilson polynomials (introduced by him in 1984 together with James A. Wilson) are on the top level of the (q)-Askey scheme, which organizes orthogonal polynomials of (q-)hypergeometric type into a hierarchy. The Askey–Gasper inequality for Jacobi polynomials is essential in de Brange's famous proof of the Bieberbach conjecture.
Askey earned a B.A. at Washington University in 1955, an M.A. at Harvard University in 1956, and a Ph.D. at Princeton University in 1961. After working as an instructor at Washington University (1958–1961) and University of Chicago (1961–1963), he joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1963 as an Assistant Professor of Mathematics. He became a full professor at Wisconsin in 1968, and since 2003 has been a professor emeritus. Askey was a Guggenheim Fellow, 1969–1970, which academic year he spent at the Mathematisch Centrum in Amsterdam. In 1983 he gave an invited lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in Warszawa. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1993. In 1999 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. In 2009 he became a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. In December 2012 he received an honorary doctorate from SASTRA University in Kumbakonam, India.