2008 Woodie Awards
Jekuthiel Ginsburg, Abe Gelbart, and the Beginnings of the Belfer Graduate School of Science
Stephen Gelbart
Issue date: 3/8/05 Section: YUdaica
- Page 1 of 1
My father's association with Yeshiva College dates back to 1928, the year of its founding, when he was 17 years old. It was then that he met Dr. Jekuthiel Ginsburg in the math section of the New York Public Library at 5th Avenue and 42nd Street. Dad had dropped out of school in Paterson, New Jersey when he was 14, and had gone to work in order to help bring home much needed money for the family. That left weekends free for studying alone. Having mastered the material in math and physics that was available at the public library in Paterson, he went on to the wonderful library at 42nd Street in New York.
It was there that he had met Dr. Ginsburg. After several weeks of reading together at the same table, Ginsburg approached my father and said, "Young man, I see you're here every weekend. I'm presently chairman of the Mathematics Department at Yeshiva College, and I come here to read books I don't have. Why do you come here?" My father told Dr. Ginsburg that he was very interested in math and physics and found the New York Public Library the only source he had for continuing his education in that field. Ginsburg's curiosity was peeked, and he began asking my father questions about how much he really understood. "If you're so eager to learn about these subjects," Ginsburg asked, "I'll make you a proposal you can't refuse. Instead of coming to this library, why don't you come to my house, and I'll tutor you there." This, of course, overwhelmed my father, who was amazed that anyone could make such a suggestion. So he told Dr. Ginsburg he would gladly accept his offer, and thanked him for his generosity.
My father began visiting Dr. Ginsburg on weekends at his home. When he mentioned the visits to his family, they were well aware of the name of Jekuthiel Ginsburg, and they were especially aware of the name of his brother, who was a well known Hebrew scholar. Dr. Ginsburg proposed that he and my father take Wilson's Advanced Calculus and start going through it page by page. This textbook contained chapters on advanced calculus, differential equations, differential geometry, and some partial differential equations. Ginsburg's proposal was that my Dad start from the beginning of the book, studying a section each week and solve the problems at the end of each section. If Dad didn't manage to do these problems, they would discuss them together at the next meeting. In this way, my father covered most of the advanced topics of mathematics that were nominally covered in undergraduate study of that day.
After a few years of working together, Dr. Ginsburg told my father: "Now you'll have to pay a price for what I have done for you!" My father realized that because of his kind, gentle, wonderful personality, whatever Ginsburg might ask of him would not be a heavy burden. It turned out that Ginsburg had started a mathematics Journal some years earlier, and was suggesting that my father proofread its galley proof as each issue appeared. The Journal was called Scripta Mathematica, and was published by the Mathematics Department at Yeshiva College. My father felt that this was not only a fair price to pay for what Ginsburg had done for him, but would also be a wonderful opportunity to become acquainted with articles that were in the forefront of modern mathematics.
My dad was very excited about this project. In addition to doing what he could to help proofread the galleys, he also made suggestions about the articles that were about to appear.
At about this same time, Dad also found a new construction of an ancient problem that had fascinated him for some time. Namely, given three arbitrary circles, how do you go about constructing a fourth circle that would be tangent to the three? Dr. Ginsburg read the proof my father had given and agreed that he would publish it in Scripta Mathematica!
Dr. Ginsburg's initial help and help he gave my father in later years were necessary in the progress of my father's education. From 1935 - when he left the United States for college at Dalhousie University in Canada - to 1957 when he was an established mathematician at Syracuse University, my father and Dr. Ginsburg kept up a close relationship. My Dad got his PhD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1940 and continued his work on Scripta Mathematica. In the late forties, at Dr. Ginsburg's request, he prepared a program of courses for the master's degree at Yeshiva. A draft of the program was approved by the State of New York, and the first courses leading to the Master's degree were offered in 1952. Then Ginsburg approached Dad about giving a graduate course at Yeshiva in the program Ginsburg was thinking of developing towards the PhD degree. Dad like the idea - he felt he should do whatever he could for Ginsburg's developing program. So from Syracuse he flew down one day a week to help in the teaching of courses.
In my father's unpublished autobiography, he mentioned one incident that occurred in the class in set theory that he was giving. This class was attended by several graduate students and one undergraduate. My father had given a proof that the set of all subsets on the integers was a set of higher order of infinity that Aleph zero. Having given the proof, my father made the remark that for ANY infinite set the set of all its subsets is an infinite set of higher order. He also commented that that was a little harder to prove, and he would skip over it then. Slowly, the undergraduate in the class raised his hand and said "I think the proof is not that hard." Dad immediately asked him to come to the board and show what his thoughts were about it. He struggled for fifteen minutes and then came up with the proof. My father was deeply impressed with this student and knew that he would have a great future in mathematics. As it turned out, this student went on to Princeton to get his PhD and soon took a position in Israel. Today, Harry Furstenberg is one of the most outstanding mathematicians in Israel.
When Jekuthiel Ginsburg died of a heart attack in 1957, my father was asked by Dr. Samuel Belkin, the second president of Yeshiva, to take over and replace Ginsburg. By then Dad was also associate editor of Scripta Mathematica and was quite familiar with the program that Dr. Ginsburg was trying to develop. After several discussions with Dr. Belkin, it was decided to develop a graduate program leading to the PhD degree in the physical sciences (not just mathematics). Since Yeshiva already had a graduate program in the life sciences associated with its Albert Einstein College of Medicine, this would not overlap in any way with that program. My father was willing to leave Syracuse University and come to Yeshiva to establish the graduate school of science. He was also asked to become Editor of Scripta Mathematica and he agreed to accept that position as well.
Dr. Belkin at that time was interested in convincing Mr. Arthur Belfer, a successful businessman in New York, to support the university in some way. He then approached Belfer and asked him whether he would be interested in funding the proposed Graduate School that my father had talked about, and told him that with a suitable gift, the school would be named in his honor. Mr. Belfer responded with a large gift that provided the key to financial support for the School.
The Belfer School of Science began with a rather dilapidated war surplus frame building. It had facilities for a few offices and a couple of classrooms. My father was very fortunate to be able to get Professors Atle Selberg and Deane Montgomery to act as visiting professors from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. A series of classes that launched the graduate program for the PhD, which got approval from New York State, was in the areas of mathematics, physics, and chemistry. When the Middle States Association accreditation team came to visit in 1958, they found the school unbelievably good. Their report began, "There is nothing but praise." They were amazed at how such a distinguished faculty could have been assembled in such a short period. In the years that followed, my father also invited Nobelist Paul Dirac and (later Wolf Prize winner) Freeman Dyson to act as visiting Professors of Physics.
While the growth of the school in its early years was quite encouraging, its development could hardly have continued without laboratory facilities. Without means, however, my father was only able to dream about a new building; the dreams had to be restrained, and the first plans for a new building made no new provisions for the laboratory sciences. Had they been restricted to these initial plans, the scope and variety of university's academic programs would have been severely limited for the indefinite future.
Of course there was a very serious need for better facilities: It was a time shortly after Sputnik was launched that the United States increased its interest in supporting basic sciences. It was not long after that that substantial grants from the government to support additional facilities came to Yeshiva; plans for a new, bigger, structure were started - plans that called for a twenty story structure that would contain laboratories as well as offices and lecture halls.
My father spent two years working almost daily with the architect for the plans of the Belfer School of Science. During that period he moved the school from the dilapidated war surplus structure to some space received from the New York Telephone Company. Then, in 1970, after acquiring a very impressive faculty in the areas of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and even astronomy, the new building for the Belfer School of Science was dedicated.
In addition to their normal program, the Belfer School ran a series of national conferences attended by scientists from all over the country and published many books under the auspices of Scripta Mathmatica that resulted from these conferences. All in all, the School of Science at Yeshiva University had a rewarding beginning. The dreams of an older mathematician, Dr. Jekuthiel Ginsburg, and (first his student, then mathematician) Dr. Abe Gelbart, had come to fruition.
Dr. Stephen Gelbart, a son of Dr. Abe Gelbart, is the Nicki and J. Ira Harris Professor at the Department of Mathematics, The Weizmann Institute of Science (Rehovot, Israel). This article is based on a few chapters from Abe Gelbart's unpublished (and unfinished) autobiography.
It was there that he had met Dr. Ginsburg. After several weeks of reading together at the same table, Ginsburg approached my father and said, "Young man, I see you're here every weekend. I'm presently chairman of the Mathematics Department at Yeshiva College, and I come here to read books I don't have. Why do you come here?" My father told Dr. Ginsburg that he was very interested in math and physics and found the New York Public Library the only source he had for continuing his education in that field. Ginsburg's curiosity was peeked, and he began asking my father questions about how much he really understood. "If you're so eager to learn about these subjects," Ginsburg asked, "I'll make you a proposal you can't refuse. Instead of coming to this library, why don't you come to my house, and I'll tutor you there." This, of course, overwhelmed my father, who was amazed that anyone could make such a suggestion. So he told Dr. Ginsburg he would gladly accept his offer, and thanked him for his generosity.
My father began visiting Dr. Ginsburg on weekends at his home. When he mentioned the visits to his family, they were well aware of the name of Jekuthiel Ginsburg, and they were especially aware of the name of his brother, who was a well known Hebrew scholar. Dr. Ginsburg proposed that he and my father take Wilson's Advanced Calculus and start going through it page by page. This textbook contained chapters on advanced calculus, differential equations, differential geometry, and some partial differential equations. Ginsburg's proposal was that my Dad start from the beginning of the book, studying a section each week and solve the problems at the end of each section. If Dad didn't manage to do these problems, they would discuss them together at the next meeting. In this way, my father covered most of the advanced topics of mathematics that were nominally covered in undergraduate study of that day.
After a few years of working together, Dr. Ginsburg told my father: "Now you'll have to pay a price for what I have done for you!" My father realized that because of his kind, gentle, wonderful personality, whatever Ginsburg might ask of him would not be a heavy burden. It turned out that Ginsburg had started a mathematics Journal some years earlier, and was suggesting that my father proofread its galley proof as each issue appeared. The Journal was called Scripta Mathematica, and was published by the Mathematics Department at Yeshiva College. My father felt that this was not only a fair price to pay for what Ginsburg had done for him, but would also be a wonderful opportunity to become acquainted with articles that were in the forefront of modern mathematics.
My dad was very excited about this project. In addition to doing what he could to help proofread the galleys, he also made suggestions about the articles that were about to appear.
At about this same time, Dad also found a new construction of an ancient problem that had fascinated him for some time. Namely, given three arbitrary circles, how do you go about constructing a fourth circle that would be tangent to the three? Dr. Ginsburg read the proof my father had given and agreed that he would publish it in Scripta Mathematica!
Dr. Ginsburg's initial help and help he gave my father in later years were necessary in the progress of my father's education. From 1935 - when he left the United States for college at Dalhousie University in Canada - to 1957 when he was an established mathematician at Syracuse University, my father and Dr. Ginsburg kept up a close relationship. My Dad got his PhD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1940 and continued his work on Scripta Mathematica. In the late forties, at Dr. Ginsburg's request, he prepared a program of courses for the master's degree at Yeshiva. A draft of the program was approved by the State of New York, and the first courses leading to the Master's degree were offered in 1952. Then Ginsburg approached Dad about giving a graduate course at Yeshiva in the program Ginsburg was thinking of developing towards the PhD degree. Dad like the idea - he felt he should do whatever he could for Ginsburg's developing program. So from Syracuse he flew down one day a week to help in the teaching of courses.
In my father's unpublished autobiography, he mentioned one incident that occurred in the class in set theory that he was giving. This class was attended by several graduate students and one undergraduate. My father had given a proof that the set of all subsets on the integers was a set of higher order of infinity that Aleph zero. Having given the proof, my father made the remark that for ANY infinite set the set of all its subsets is an infinite set of higher order. He also commented that that was a little harder to prove, and he would skip over it then. Slowly, the undergraduate in the class raised his hand and said "I think the proof is not that hard." Dad immediately asked him to come to the board and show what his thoughts were about it. He struggled for fifteen minutes and then came up with the proof. My father was deeply impressed with this student and knew that he would have a great future in mathematics. As it turned out, this student went on to Princeton to get his PhD and soon took a position in Israel. Today, Harry Furstenberg is one of the most outstanding mathematicians in Israel.
When Jekuthiel Ginsburg died of a heart attack in 1957, my father was asked by Dr. Samuel Belkin, the second president of Yeshiva, to take over and replace Ginsburg. By then Dad was also associate editor of Scripta Mathematica and was quite familiar with the program that Dr. Ginsburg was trying to develop. After several discussions with Dr. Belkin, it was decided to develop a graduate program leading to the PhD degree in the physical sciences (not just mathematics). Since Yeshiva already had a graduate program in the life sciences associated with its Albert Einstein College of Medicine, this would not overlap in any way with that program. My father was willing to leave Syracuse University and come to Yeshiva to establish the graduate school of science. He was also asked to become Editor of Scripta Mathematica and he agreed to accept that position as well.
Dr. Belkin at that time was interested in convincing Mr. Arthur Belfer, a successful businessman in New York, to support the university in some way. He then approached Belfer and asked him whether he would be interested in funding the proposed Graduate School that my father had talked about, and told him that with a suitable gift, the school would be named in his honor. Mr. Belfer responded with a large gift that provided the key to financial support for the School.
The Belfer School of Science began with a rather dilapidated war surplus frame building. It had facilities for a few offices and a couple of classrooms. My father was very fortunate to be able to get Professors Atle Selberg and Deane Montgomery to act as visiting professors from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. A series of classes that launched the graduate program for the PhD, which got approval from New York State, was in the areas of mathematics, physics, and chemistry. When the Middle States Association accreditation team came to visit in 1958, they found the school unbelievably good. Their report began, "There is nothing but praise." They were amazed at how such a distinguished faculty could have been assembled in such a short period. In the years that followed, my father also invited Nobelist Paul Dirac and (later Wolf Prize winner) Freeman Dyson to act as visiting Professors of Physics.
While the growth of the school in its early years was quite encouraging, its development could hardly have continued without laboratory facilities. Without means, however, my father was only able to dream about a new building; the dreams had to be restrained, and the first plans for a new building made no new provisions for the laboratory sciences. Had they been restricted to these initial plans, the scope and variety of university's academic programs would have been severely limited for the indefinite future.
Of course there was a very serious need for better facilities: It was a time shortly after Sputnik was launched that the United States increased its interest in supporting basic sciences. It was not long after that that substantial grants from the government to support additional facilities came to Yeshiva; plans for a new, bigger, structure were started - plans that called for a twenty story structure that would contain laboratories as well as offices and lecture halls.
My father spent two years working almost daily with the architect for the plans of the Belfer School of Science. During that period he moved the school from the dilapidated war surplus structure to some space received from the New York Telephone Company. Then, in 1970, after acquiring a very impressive faculty in the areas of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and even astronomy, the new building for the Belfer School of Science was dedicated.
In addition to their normal program, the Belfer School ran a series of national conferences attended by scientists from all over the country and published many books under the auspices of Scripta Mathmatica that resulted from these conferences. All in all, the School of Science at Yeshiva University had a rewarding beginning. The dreams of an older mathematician, Dr. Jekuthiel Ginsburg, and (first his student, then mathematician) Dr. Abe Gelbart, had come to fruition.
Dr. Stephen Gelbart, a son of Dr. Abe Gelbart, is the Nicki and J. Ira Harris Professor at the Department of Mathematics, The Weizmann Institute of Science (Rehovot, Israel). This article is based on a few chapters from Abe Gelbart's unpublished (and unfinished) autobiography.