MATHEMATICIAN

Peter Lax

1926 - 2025

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Peter David Lax (1 May 1926 – 16 May 2025) was a Hungarian-born American mathematician and Abel Prize laureate working in the areas of pure and applied mathematics. Lax made important contributions to integrable systems, fluid dynamics and shock waves, solitonic physics, hyperbolic conservation laws, and mathematical and scientific computing, among other fields. In a 1958 paper Lax stated a conjecture about matrix representations for third order hyperbolic polynomials which remained unproven for over four decades. Interest in the "Lax conjecture" grew as mathematicians working in several different areas recognized the importance of its implications in their field, until it was finally proven to be true in 2003. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Peter Lax is the 160th most popular mathematician (up from 514th in 2019), the 106th most popular biography from Hungary (up from 352nd in 2019) and the 5th most popular Hungarian Mathematician.

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Among MATHEMATICIANS

Among mathematicians, Peter Lax ranks 160 out of 1,004. Before him are Colin Maclaurin, Michel Rolle, Oliver Heaviside, Aloysius Lilius, Autolycus of Pitane, and Aleksandr Lyapunov. After him are Scipione del Ferro, Ernst Kummer, Sophus Lie, Vito Volterra, Jost Bürgi, and James Joseph Sylvester.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1926, Peter Lax ranks 63. Before him are Vivian Maier, John G. Kemeny, Murray Rothbard, Margot Frank, Masatoshi Koshiba, and Abdoulaye Wade. After him are Kim Jae-gyu, Ingrid Thulin, Jean-Pierre Serre, Harry Dean Stanton, Salah Jadid, and Sergio Corbucci. Among people deceased in 2025, Peter Lax ranks 33. Before him are Geneviève Page, Roberta Flack, Robert Benton, Denis Law, Punsalmaagiin Ochirbat, and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. After him are Violeta Chamorro, Jochen Mass, Costas Simitis, Ján Zachara, Alfredo Palacio, and Vitold Fokin.

Others Born in 1926

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In Hungary

Among people born in Hungary, Peter Lax ranks 106 out of 1,077. Before him are Zoltán Czibor (1929), John G. Kemeny (1926), Samuel Aba (990), George Pólya (1887), Pál Teleki (1879), and Loránd Eötvös (1848). After him are György Cziffra (1921), Stephen IV of Hungary (1133), László Sólyom (1942), Ágnes Heller (1929), Taksony of Hungary (931), and Ján Kollár (1793).

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Among MATHEMATICIANS In Hungary

Among mathematicians born in Hungary, Peter Lax ranks 5. Before him are John von Neumann (1903), Paul Erdős (1913), John G. Kemeny (1926), and George Pólya (1887). After him are Marcel Grossmann (1878), Rudolf E. Kálmán (1930), Klára Dán von Neumann (1911), László Lovász (1948), Frigyes Riesz (1880), Paul Halmos (1916), and Endre Szemerédi (1940).

Hungarian born Mathematicians

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