Tibor Rado

The Board of Trustees expresses its sorrow at the death on December 29, 1965, of Tibor Rado, University Research Professor Emeritus.

Dr. Rado was one of the galaxy of Hungarian mathematicians who came to the United States after World War I and imparted a significant impulse to the development of mathematical studies. Professor Rado's contributions to mathematical theory ranged from geometry to abstract formulas, including such subjects as calculus of variations, analysis in general, conformal mapping, minimal surfaces. complex functions, geometry of area, Riemann surfaces, and the Plateau problem.

Professor Rado was born in Budapest on June 2, 1895. From 1943 to 1915 he attended the Polytechnic Institute in the Hungarian capital. He then joined the Hungarian armed forces as a first lieutenant and was captured on the Russian front and sent to Siberia. He escaped from the prisoners' camp and his subsequent odyssey took him to the Arctic regions of Russia, where he lived with Eskimos while moving slowly westward, seeking final escape to his homeland. After thousands of miles across the Arctic wastelands, Dr. Rado returned to Hungary and resumed his education. In 1923, he received a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Szeged.

Dr. Rado taught for a brief period at the University of Szeged and then went to Germany as a research fellow for the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1929, he came to the United States. He lectured at Harvard University and the Rice Institute and in 1930 joined the faculty of The Ohio State University.

In 1933, Dr. Rado published his first original contribution to mathematical thought, "On the Problem of Plateau," which was translated into every Western language and brought him instant fame. In 1935, he published his second work, "Subharmonic Functions."

As World War II entered its final phase, he interrupted his academic career to render a special service to the United States Government. As a science consultant to the armed forces, he was sent to Germany to find German scientists needed by the United States as it approached the nuclear and missile age. Dr. Rado then returned to his research at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey. In 1946, he became Chairman of the Department of Mathematics at The Ohio State University, a position he held through 1948. The following year he was named Research Professor.

Professor Rado served as a Visiting Professor at a number of universities, including the University of Chicago, the University of Puerto Rico, and Kansas State.

In the last six years, Dr. Rado's work with computers was concentrated on the design of automatic systems, appropriate mathematical tools, the method called Turing machines, named after the English mathematician, Alan M. Turing, which he preferred to call "Turing programs," and the limitations of what computers can do.

On behalf of the entire University, the Board of Trustees expresses to the family its deep sympathy and sense of understanding in its loss. It is directed that this Resolution be inscribed upon the minutes of the Board of Trustees.

Department of Mathematics [0]