Nationality American Name Abraham Taub | Alma mater Princeton University Fields Mathematics
Physics | |
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Born February 1, 1911
Chicago ( 1911-02-01 ) Died August 9, 1999(1999-08-09) Institutions University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign | ||
Doctoral advisor Howard P. Robertson | ||
Abraham H. Taub | Wikipedia audio article
Abraham Haskel Taub (; February 1, 1911 – August 9, 1999) was a distinguished American mathematician and physicist, well known for his important contributions to the early development of general relativity, as well as differential geometry and differential equations.
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Work
In a 1948 paper dealing with relativistic shock waves, Taub introduced a relativistic generalization of the Rankine-Hugoniot jump conditions across a shock, which is now known as the Taub Adiabat. He also introduced the Taub–NUT space in general relativity.
Taub earned his doctorate at Princeton University in 1935, under the direction of the prominent relativist Howard P. Robertson. At Princeton, Taub was also influenced by Oswald Veblen.
In 1948, Abe Taub went to the University of Illinois as the chief mathematician associated with a project to build a computer based on von Neumann's plans. The computer, called ORDVAC, was completed in 1952 and delivered to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. A second copy of the computer, ILLIAC I, remained at Illinois and was the prototype for several other computers. Taub was head of the Digital Computer Laboratory at Illinois from 1961 until 1964, when he moved to the University of California, Berkeley, as director of the Computer Center (1964–68).