Bernard Morris Dwork (May 27, 1923 – May 9, 1998) was an American mathematician, known for his application of p-adic analysis to local zeta functions, and in particular for a proof of the first part of the Weil conjectures: the rationality of the zeta-function of a variety over a finite field. The general theme of Dwork's research was p-adic cohomology and p-adic differential equations. He published two papers under the pseudonym Maurizio Boyarsky.

Career

Dwork studied electrical engineering at the City College of New York and Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.^[1] He served in the Pacific theater of World War II.^[1]

He received his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1954 under direction of Emil Artin (his formal advisor was John Tate); Nick Katz was one of his students.^[2][3]

He spent 3 years at Harvard University and 7 years at Johns Hopkins University before joining Princeton University as a faculty member in 1964.^[1] He became Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics in 1978 and became emeritus in 1993.^[1] He was named a Professore di Chiara Fama by the Italian government and held a special chair at the University of Padua from 1992 onwards.^[1]

Awards and honors

For his proof of the first part of the Weil conjectures, Dwork received (together with Kenkichi Iwasawa) the Cole Prize in 1962.^[2] He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1964.

Personal life

Dwork was married to Shirley Dwork and is the father of computer scientist Cynthia Dwork, historian Deborah Dwork, and Andrew Dwork.^[1]

See also

• Crystalline cohomology
• Gross–Koblitz formula
• Langlands–Deligne local constant
• p-adic gamma function

References