Scienceאריה דבורצקי

Aryeh Dvoretzky

Aryeh Dvoretzky was an Israeli mathematician known for work in functional analysis, statistics and probability, who won the 1973 Israel Prize and served as president of the Weizmann Institute of Science.

1916 to 2008Dvoretzky's theorem on Banach spacesThe Dvoretzky-Kiefer-Wolfowitz inequalityPresidency of the Weizmann InstituteChief scientist of Israel's defense establishment

Born: 3 May 1916, Khorol
Died: 8 May 2008, Jerusalem
Occupation: mathematician, pedagogue, university teacher, statistician
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Hebrew Reali School

Aryeh Dvoretzky was born in 1916 in Khorol

Aryeh Dvoretzky was born in 1916 in Khorol, in the Russian Empire, now in Ukraine. His family moved to the Land of Israel in 1922.

He finished the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa in 1933 and studied mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He earned his doctorate there in 1941 under Michael Fekete.

In 1951 he became the first Hebrew University graduate to be made a full professor there. He helped prove the Dvoretzky-Kiefer-Wolfowitz inequality in 1956 and later proved Dvoretzky's theorem on Banach spaces. He was the first in Israel to work on game theory.

He was vice president of the Hebrew University from 1959 to 1961 and served as chief scientist of the defense establishment until 1972. He led the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities from 1974 to 1980 and founded the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem in 1975. In 1985 he was elected president of the Weizmann Institute of Science.

He married Sarah Schneersohn, a translator of Latin literature, and they had 2 children. Their son Gideon was killed in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Dvoretzky died in 2008 and was buried at Har HaMenuchot.