George Szpiro
George Geza Szpiro (born 18 February 1950 in Vienna)[1] is an Israeli–Swiss author, journalist, and mathematician. He has written articles and books on popular mathematics and related topics.
Life and career
[edit]Szpiro was born in Vienna in 1950, and moved to Zug, Switzerland, in 1961.[2] He obtained a master's degree in mathematics and physics from ETH Zurich. He also obtained an MBA from Stanford University, in 1975.[2] Afterward, he worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.[3][4] In 1984, he obtained a Ph.D. in mathematical economics from Hebrew University.[2][4]
Szpiro was an assistant professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, during 1984–1986. He was a lecturer in mathematical economics at Hebrew University, during 1986–1992. He also taught at the University of Zurich.[3][4] He has published research papers related to mathematics, finance, and statistics.[5]
Since 1986, Szpiro has worked as a journalist at Neue Zürcher Zeitung.[2] At NZZ, he has been the Israel correspondent and mathematics columnist.[2][6] For his mathematics columns, Szpiro was awarded the Prix Média by the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences, in 2003.[7][8] He was also awarded the Media Prize by the German Mathematical Society, in 2006.[4] Beside writing for NZZ, he has also written non-research mathematics columns for journals such as Nature and Notices of the American Mathematical Society.[5][6]
Books
[edit]- Kepler's Conjecture: How Some of the Greatest Minds in History Helped Solve One of the Oldest Math Problems in the World (John Wiley & Sons, 2003)
- The Secret Life of Numbers: 50 Easy Pieces on How Mathematicians Work and Think (Joseph Henry Press, 2006)
- Poincaré's Prize: The Hundred-Year Quest to Solve One of Math's Greatest Puzzles (Dutton, 2007)
- Numbers Rule: The Vexing Mathematics of Democracy, from Plato to the Present (Princeton University Press, 2010)
- A Mathematical Medley: Fifty Easy Pieces on Mathematics (American Mathematical Society, 2010)
- Pricing the Future: Finance, Physics, and the 300-year Journey to the Black-Scholes Equation (Basic Books, 2011)
Notes
[edit]- ^ Who's Who in Finance and Industry 1998–1999, p. 781
- ^ a b c d e George G. Szpiro - NZZ, archived from the original on 2015-04-12
- ^ a b "Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung verleiht Medienpreise", Press Release, Technische Universität Berlin (2006-11-06)
- ^ a b c d Medienpreise der DMV 2006, archived from the original on 2009-01-23
- ^ a b "George G. Szpiro - Publications"—list of Szpiro's publications at ResearchGate
- ^ a b Szpiro, G. (2007), "Interview with Stephen Smale" (PDF), Notices of the American Mathematical Society, 54: 995–997
- ^ "Preisträger Prix Média", Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences
- ^ Descartes Communication Prize, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (European Commission) (2005)
External links
[edit]- George Szpiro at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- George Szpiro, archived from the original on 2016-01-13 —website of George Szpiro
- George Szpiro on LinkedIn
- "The Truth, the Whole Truth, And Nothing but the Truth" —YouTube video of Szpiro discussing the difficulties a journalist faces when writing about mathematics for a general audience (the discussion was part of a seminar at the University of Edinburgh: dated 9 April 2015)
