Theodore Motzkin

Theodore Samuel Motzkin was an Israeli-American mathematician, born on 26 March 1908. He grew up in Berlin, the son of Leo Motzkin, and started studying mathematics at an early age, entering university when he was only 15. He received his Ph.D. in 1934 from the University of Basel under the supervision of Alexander Ostrowski for a thesis on linear programming, Beiträge zur Theorie der linearen Ungleichungen, an important contribution to the nascent theory of linear programming whose importance was recognized only after an English translation appeared in 1951. He was appointed to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1935, worked as a cryptographer for the British government during World War II, moved to the United States in 1948, and worked at UCLA from 1950 until his retirement. He died on 15 December 1970.