Mark Kac (Marko Kac) (b. 3 August 1914, Krzemieniec, now Ukraine; d. 26 October 1984, California, USA) (pronounced kahts) was a Ukrainian and Polish mathematician of Jewish ancestry. His main interest was probability theory. His question "can you hear the shape of a drum?" set off research into spectral theory, with the idea of understanding the extent to which the spectrum allows one to read back the geometry. (In the end, the answer was "no", in general.) August 3 is the 215th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (216th in leap years), with 150 days remaining. ... 1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Kremenets (Ukrainian:Кременець, Polish: Krzemieniec) is a city in Ternopil Oblast, Galicia-Volhynia, Western Ukraine. ... October 26 is the 299th day of the year (300th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 66 days remaining. ... 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Official language(s) English Capital Sacramento Largest city Los Angeles Area  Ranked 3rd  - Total 158,302 sq mi (410,000 km²)  - Width 250 miles (400 km)  - Length 770 miles (1,240 km)  - % water 4. ... For other uses, see Jew (disambiguation). ... Probability is the extent to which something is likely to happen or be the case[1]. Probability theory is used extensively in areas such as statistics, mathematics, science, philosophy to draw conclusions about the likelihood of potential events and the underlying mechanics of complex systems. ... In mathematics, spectral theory is an inclusive term for theories extending the eigenvector and eigenvalue theory of a single square matrix. ...

Marko Kac fled the dictator-ruled militaristic and anti-semitic Poland and moved to the U.S.A. This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ...

His book of popularisation with Stanislaw Ulam is a minor classic. Stanisław Ulam in the 1950s. ...

Books

• Mark Kac and Stanisław Ulam: Mathematics and Logic: Retrospect and Prospects, Praeger, New York (1968) Dover paperback reprint.

• Mark Kac, Enigmas of Chance: An Autobiography, Harper and Row, New York, 1985. Sloan Foundation Series. Published posthumously with a memoriam note by Gian-Carlo Rota. Kac's distinction between an "ordinary genius" like Hans Bethe and a "magician" like Richard Feynman has been widely quoted. (Kac knew both at Cornell University.)

StanisÅ‚aw Ulam in the 1950s. ... 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday. ... Gian-Carlo Rota (April 27, 1932 – April 18, 1999, known as Juan Carlos Rota to Spanish speakers) was an Italian-born American mathematician and philosopher. ... Hans Albrecht Bethe (pronounced bay-tuh; July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005), was a German-American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1967 for his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. ... Richard Phillips Feynman (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988; surname pronounced ) was an American physicist known for expanding the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, and particle theory. ...

See also

• Hearing the shape of a drum
• Feynman-Kac formula
• Hugo Steinhaus
• Erdős-Kac theorem
• Polish anti-Semitism

In mathematics, hearing the shape of a drum relates to a series of results that do just that, i. ... The Feynman-Kac formula establishes a link between partial differential equations (PDEs) and stochastic processes. ... Hugo Dyonizy Steinhaus (January 14, 1887 - February 25, 1972) was a Polish mathematician, educator, and humanist. ... In number theory, the Erdős-Kac theorem, named after Paul Erdős and Mark Kac, states that if ω(x) is the number of distinct prime factors of x, then where is the probability density function of the standard normal distribution, which occurs incessantly in probability theory and statistics. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ...

External links

• O'Connor, John J., and Edmund F. Robertson. "Mark Kac". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
• Mark Kac at the Mathematics Genealogy Project