Home > Oswald Veblen

He was born in Decorah, Iowa, to the mathematician brother of the famed-economist-to-be Thorstein Veblen.

He earned his B.A. at the University of Iowa from 1894 to 1898.

In 1903, he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, with the thesis A System of Axioms for Geometry, and joined the faculty of Princeton University in 1905. In 1928 he began a one-year stint at Oxford University, trading places with G. H. Hardy. In 1932, as one of the organizers of the Institute for Advanced StudyThe Institute for Advanced Study is a private institution in Princeton Township, New Jersey, designed to foster pure cutting-edge research by scientists in a variety of fields without the complications of teaching or funding, or the agendas of sponsorship, he moved there from Princeton.

He made important contributions in topologyTopology is the study or science of places. It derives its name from the Greek words τοπος meaning place and λογος meaning study, talk. See also earth science, geography, human geography, g and in projectiveIn a historical perspective on mathematics, the field of geometry that developed in the first half of the nineteenth century under the name projective geometry was a stepping stone from analytic geometry to algebraic geometry. When treated in terms of hom and differential geometries, including results important in modern physicsThe phrase modern physics may refer to: physics based on quantum mechanics ( quantum physics) physics based on relativity 20th-century physics in general.. He was involved in overseeing the World War IIWorld War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the world's nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. The war was fough work that produced the pioneering ENIACENIAC short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer was the first all-electronic computer designed to be Turing-complete, capable of being reprogrammed by rewiring to solve a full range of computing problems. It was preceded in 1941 by the fully electronic digital computer.

He died in Brooklyn, Maine in 1960 at age 80.