Shizuo Kakutani 1911-2004, Japanese mathematician, b. Osaka, Japan, grad. Tohoko Univ, Ph.D. Princeton, 1941. Kakutani repatriated to Japan during World War II, but returned to Princeton in 1948 and joined the faculty at Yale the following year, remaining there until his death. He did influential work in probability theory, particularly in the fields of ergodic theory (the use of statistical concepts to describe average properties in deterministic dynamical systems), functional analysis (a methodology used to explain the workings of a complex system), and Brownian motion . He developed the Kakutani fixed-point theorem, which was instrumental in confirming the work of mathematician John Forbes Nash and economists Kenneth J. Arrow and Gerard Debreu , all of whom were awarded the Nobel memorial economics prize. Kakutani is also known for the Kakutani skyscraper, a methodology for describing a random process, such as the tossing of a coin, that organizes the process into a picture resembling an office building, making it easier to understand the properties of the process.
Author not available, KAKUTANI, SHIZUO.,
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition 2008
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press
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Shizuo Kakutani, mathematicianOBITUARIES
International Herald Tribune; 8/19/2004; 191 words;
International Herald Tribune 08-19-2004 Shizuo Kakutani, a mathematician known for fundamental ... professor at Yale for 33 years, Kakutani was known to mathematicians for ... tool he developed, known as the Kakutani fixed-point theorem, was a key ...
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Gerard Debreu: the general equilibrium model (1921-2005) in memoriam.(Obituary)
American Economist; 3/22/2005; Ramrattan, Lall Szenberg, Michael; 7842 words;
... E. J.] Brouwer type or of the [Shizuo] Kakutani type or by analogous arguments ... a map and the degree theory of maps were used ... . (4) Finally, in 1976 ... article of 1937 on growth theory that Shizuo Kakutani reformulated in 1941 as a fixed ... learned about the applications of ...
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&type=1 "The Independent (London, England)")
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PROFESSOR BILL PARRY.(OBITUARIES)
The Independent (London, England); 9/8/2006; 982 words;
... spent at Yale University, was very important in Parry's mathematical development because he had close contact with Shizuo Kakutani and several young American mathematicians who were working in the same area. He returned to Birmingham with an enhanced ...
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