Paul Halmos
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Paul Richard Halmos (Hungarian: Halmos Pál; March 3, 1916 – October 2, 2006) was a Hungarian-Jewish-born American mathematician.
Halmost made fundamental advances in the areas of mathematical logic, probability theory, statistics, operator theory, ergodic theory, and functional analysis (in particular, Hilbert spaces).
He was also recognized as a great mathematical expositor.
Tombstone (typography)
The tombstone character has also been called a halmos.
Halmost was the first to used the tombstone in mathematical context.
He got the idea of using it from seeing it was being used to indicate the end of articles in magazines.
In his memoir I want to be a mathematician: an automathography, he wrote the following:
The symbol is definitely not my invention — it appeared in popular magazines (not mathematical ones) before I adopted it, but, once again, I seem to have introduced it into mathematics. It is the symbol that sometimes looks like ▯, and is used to indicate an end, usually the end of a proof. It is most frequently called the 'tombstone', but at least one generous author referred to it as the 'halmos'.
See also
External links
- Paul Halmos @ Wikipedia
