Papers of George D. Birkhoff

George David Birkhoff (1884-1944), mathematician and Perkins Professorship of Astronomy and Mathematics at Harvard College, taught mathematics at Harvard from 1912 to 1944. Birkhoff discovered what is now called the ergodic theorem in 1931, and his research focused on differential and difference equations and the calculus of variations, relativity, dynamical systems and stability.

Born on March 21, 1884 to David Birkhoff and Janna Geertruida Droppers Birkhoff in Overisel, Michigan, Birkoff lived in a Dutch community in Michigan before the family moved to Chicago in 1886. Birkhoff stuied at the Lewis Institute of Technology, now the Illinois Institute of Technology from 1896 to 1902, before entering the University of Chicago in 1902. In 1903, Birkhoff transferred to Harvard, becoming a member of the Harvard College Class of 1905, and graduated with an AB in 1905 and an AM in 1906. Following his studies at Harvard, Birkhoff entered doctoral studies in mathematics at the University of Chicago, receiving his Ph.D. in 1907.

After receiving his Ph.D., Birkhoff taught briefly at the University of Wisconsin at Madison from 1907 to 1909 and then at Princeton University until 1912 when he accepted an assistant professorship at Harvard University. While at Harvard, Birkhoff was appointed Professor in 1919 and was named Perkins Professor of Astronomy and Mathematics in 1933, a position he held until his death in 1944.

Professionally, Birkhoff was a member of several societies including the American Mathematical Society, serving as the organization's vice-president in 1919 and its president from 1925 to 1926; the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The George David Birkhoff Prize in applied mathematics, awarded jointly by the American Mathematical Society and the Society for Applied and Industrial Mathematics, is named in his honor.

Birkhoff married Margaret Elizabeth Grafius in 1908. The couple had three children, including mathematician Garrett Birkhoff (1911-1996). Birkhoff died in Cambridge, Mass. on November 12, 1944.