Frank Spitzer

Frank Ludvig Spitzer (July 24, 1926 – February 1, 1992) was an Austrian-born, Jewish-American mathematician who was a longtime professor at Cornell University and made fundamental contributions to probability theory, especially the theory of random walks, Brownian motion, and fluctuation theory, and then the theory of interacting particle systems. By the time he was twelve years old, the Nazi threat in Austria was evident. His parents were able to send him to a summer camp for Jewish children in Sweden, and, as a result, Spitzer spent all of the World War II years in Sweden. He lived with two Swedish families, learned Swedish, graduated from high school, and for one year attended Tekniska Hogskolan in Stockholm. at which point he became a professor emeritus.

Selected publications