[FOM] Fwd: Gabriel Stolzenberg (1937-2019)

Martin Davis martin at eipye.com
Thu Nov 28 14:52:25 EST 2019


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Daniel Stolzenberg <dstolz at ucdavis.edu>
Date: Thu, Nov 28, 2019 at 11:31 AM
Subject: Gabriel Stolzenberg (1937-2019)
To: martin at eipye.com <martin at eipye.com>
Dear Martin Davis,

I’m writing to you because you are listed as the moderator of the FOM email
list. My father Gabriel Stolzenberg, who passed away last week,
participated in the FOM list for a period in the mid-2000s and spent much
of his career exploring the foundations of mathematics from a constructive
viewpoint. I don’t know to what extent the FOM list reaches people that
knew my father or his work, but it occurred to me that it might be worth
posting a notice of his death. If you think that makes sense, would you be
able to do so? I am attaching a copy of his obituary.

Thanks so much.

All best,
Daniel Stolzenberg

Gabriel Stolzenberg died on November 19, 2019 at the age of eighty-two in
Watertown, Massachusetts, following a long struggle with a neurological
disease. Gabriel leaves behind him a loving and beloved wife, Nancy Kopell,
two children, Nomi and Daniel Stolzenberg, their spouses, David Myers and
Mara Kolesas, and five grandchildren: Tali, Noa, Sara, Milo and Lina.
Gabriel Stolzenberg was born in 1937 in Brooklyn to Aba Stolzenberg, a
gifted Yiddish poet, and Bluma aka Florence Stolzenberg; he had one
sibling, Ethel Stolzenberg Tessman. He attended Stuyvesant High School
until entering Columbia University on a Ford Foundation Scholarship at the
age of sixteen. In 1954, he took a year's leave to live on a kibbutz in
Israel. He graduated from Columbia in 1958, shortly before marrying his
first wife, Judith Levine. After receiving his PhD in mathematics from MIT
in 1961, he was Benjamin Pierce Instructor at Harvard and then professor at
Brown, and Northeastern Universities, with visiting positions at Berkeley
and Paris. He was a renowned mathematician as well as a devoted teacher and
pedagogical innovator. He spent the later years of his career exploring the
philosophical foundations of mathematics and human knowledge, as an
exponent of constructivism. His commitment to a vision of science based on
the values of fairness and civility led him to engage in the "science wars"
of the 1990s. Gabriel will be remembered for his playful sense of humor,
his love of storytelling, and unique take on the world as well as his
brilliant mind and loving heart. He will also be remembered for his
exceptional generosity and kindness to those in need. Donations in his name
can be made to Pine Street Inn in Boston.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: </pipermail/fom/attachments/20191128/49a60441/attachment.html>


More information about the FOM mailing list