Oscar Zariski
Johns Hopkins University
April 24, 1899 - July 4, 1986
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Scientific Discipline: Mathematics Membership Type:
Emeritus
(elected 1944)
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Oscar Zariski used the techniques of modern commutative algebra to reinvigorate the field of algebraic geometry. Born in Ukraine, he studied in Rome, where he was influenced by the Italian school of algebraic geometry. He later rejected their work for insufficient rigor and decided that algebraic geometry needed an appropriate foundation. He incorporated concepts from abstract algebra and modified the foundations without the use of analytic or topological methods. He used notions of integral independence to accomplish works such as The resolution of singularities for threefolds in characteristic 0 in 1944 and The clarification of the notion of simple point in 1947.
Zariski began his studies at the University of Kiev in 1918. He fled Ukraine in 1920, earned his doctorate in Rome in 1924, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1927. He settled at the Johns Hopkins University, becoming a professor in 1937. He taught at the University of Illinois from 1946 to 1947 and then became a professor at Harvard University, from which he retired in 1969. He served as vice president of the American Mathematical Society between 1960 and 1961 and president from 1969 to 1970.
