Daniel Kleitman

{{Short description|American mathematician (born 1934)}} {{Infobox scientist | honorific_prefix = | name =  | honorific_suffix = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | image = Daniel Kleitman.jpg | image_size = | image_upright = | landscape =  | alt = | caption = | birth_name =  | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1934|10|04}} | birth_place = Brooklyn, New York | death_date =  | death_place = | death_cause =  | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates =  | other_names = | siglum = | pronounce = | citizenship =  | nationality =  | fields = {{plainlist| *Physics *Mathematics }} | workplaces = {{plainlist| *Massachusetts Institute of Technology *Brandeis University *Niels Bohr Institute *Harvard University }} | patrons = | education = {{plainlist| *Cornell University <small>(1954)</small> *Harvard University <small>(1958)</small> }} | alma_mater = | thesis_title = Static Properties of Heavy Fermi-Particles; Deuteron-Nucleon Scattering at High Enery | thesis_url =  | thesis_year = 1958 | doctoral_advisor = {{plainlist| *Julian Seymour Schwinger *Roy Jay Glauber }} | academic_advisors = | doctoral_students = | notable_students = | known_for = | awards = | author_abbrev_bot = | author_abbrev_zoo = | spouse = Sharon Ruth Alexander | partner =  | children = 3 | parents = | father = | mother = | relatives = | signature =  | signature_type =  | signature_alt = | website = | footnotes = }} '''Daniel J. Kleitman''' (born October 4, 1934)<ref name=Peck>{{cite journal|last1=Peck |first1=G. W. |author-link1=G. W. Peck| title=Kleitman and Combinatorics: A Celebration| journal=Discrete Mathematics| year=2002| volume=257|issue=2–3| pages=193–224| mr=1935723| doi=10.1016/S0012-365X(02)00595-2| doi-access=}} ([https://faculty.math.illinois.edu/~west/pubs/kcc.pdf article available] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210123132422/https://faculty.math.illinois.edu/~west/pubs/kcc.pdf |date=2021-01-23 }} on Douglas West's web page, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign).</ref><ref name="Who's Who">"Kleitman, Daniel J.," in: ''Who's Who in Frontier Science and Technology'', 1, 1984, p. 396.</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=6YNUAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Kleitman,+Daniel+J%22+AND+%221934%22 Kleitman, Daniel J in ''American Men of Science'', vol. 4, 2009]</ref> is an American mathematician and professor of applied mathematics at MIT. His research interests include combinatorics, graph theory, genomics, and operations research.

== Biography == Kleitman was born in 1934 in Brooklyn, New York,<ref name=Peck/> the younger of Bertha and Milton Kleitman's two sons. His father was a lawyer who after WWII became a commodities trader and investor. In 1942 the family moved to Morristown, New Jersey,<ref name="Morristown Green">{{cite web|url=https://morristowngreen.com/2012/07/25/new-park-plus-tree-plan-make-for-sunny-summer-day-on-hillcrest-avenue-in-morristown| author=Kevin Coughlin| title=New park, plus tree plan, make for sunny summer day on Hillcrest Avenue in Morristown| website=MorrisTownGreen.com| date=July 25, 2012}}.</ref> and he graduated from Morristown High School in 1950.<ref name=Peck/>

Kleitman then attended Cornell University, from which he graduated in 1954,<ref name=Peck/> and received his PhD in Physics from Harvard University in 1958 under Nobel Laureates Julian Schwinger and Roy Glauber.<ref>{{MathGenealogy|id=12895}}</ref> He is the "k" in G. W. Peck, a pseudonym for a group of six mathematicians that includes Kleitman. Formerly a physics professor at Brandeis University,<ref name="mit-home-page"/> Kleitman was encouraged by Paul Erdős to change his field of study to mathematics. Perhaps humorously, Erdős once asked him, "Why are you ''only'' a physicist?"<ref name=Peck/>

Kleitman joined the applied mathematics faculty at MIT in 1966, and was promoted to professor in 1969.<ref name="mit-home-page">{{cite web|url=http://www-math.mit.edu/people/profile.php?pid=135|title=MIT Mathematics - Daniel Kleitman|publisher=www-math.mit.edu|access-date=23 March 2010|archive-date=2 April 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100402161048/http://www-math.mit.edu/people/profile.php?pid=135|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Kleitman coauthored at least six papers with Erdős, giving him an Erdős number of 1.

He was a math advisor and extra for the film ''Good Will Hunting.''<ref>Daniel J. Kleitman, [https://www.ams.org/notices/199804/review-saul.pdf "My Career in the Movies,"], ''Notices of the American Mathematical Society'', '''45''', 502 (April 1998)</ref> Since Minnie Driver, who appeared in ''Good Will Hunting'', also appeared in ''Sleepers'' with Kevin Bacon, Kleitman has a Bacon number of 2. Adding the two numbers results in an Erdős–Bacon number of 3, which is a tie with Bruce Reznick for the lowest number anyone has.<ref name="erdos-bacon">{{cite web | last = Grossman | first = Jerry | url = https://oakland.edu/enp/related/ | title = Items of Interest Related to Erdös Numbers | website = The Erdös Number Project | publisher = Oakland University | access-date = 24 August 2018}}</ref>

In 1973 Kleitman was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.amacad.org/person/daniel-j-kleitman|date=April 24, 1973|title=Members of American Academy of Arts and Sciences}}</ref>

In 2024 Kleitman was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nasonline.org/news-and-multimedia/news/2024-nas-election.html|date=April 30, 2024|title=National Academy of Sciences Elects Members and International Members}}</ref>

==Personal life== On July 26, 1964 Kleitman married Sharon Ruth Alexander. They have three children.<ref name=Peck/>

==Selected publications== *{{cite journal|title=On a combinatorial problem of Erdős|journal=Proc. Amer. Math. Soc.|year=1966|volume=17|pages=139–141|mr=0184866|doi=10.1090/s0002-9939-1966-0184866-9|last1=Kleitman|first1=Daniel|doi-access=free}} *{{cite journal|title=On Dedekind's problem: The number of monotone Boolean functions|journal=Proc. Amer. Math. Soc.|year=1969|volume=21|issue=3|pages=677–682|mr=0241334|doi=10.1090/s0002-9939-1969-0241334-6|last1=Kleitman|first1=Daniel|doi-access=free}} *{{cite journal|title=The number of finite topologies|journal=Proc. Amer. Math. Soc.|year=1970|volume=25|issue=2|pages=276–282|mr=0253944|doi=10.1090/s0002-9939-1970-0253944-9|last1=Kleitman|first1=Daniel|last2=Rothschild|first2=Bruce|doi-access=free}} *{{cite journal|title=On collections of subsets containing 4-member Boolean algebras|journal=Proc. Amer. Math. Soc.|year=1971|volume=28|pages=87–90|mr=0270924|doi=10.1090/s0002-9939-1971-0270924-9|last1=Erdős|first1=Paul|last2=Kleitman|first2=Daniel|doi-access=free}} *{{cite journal|title=Asymptotic enumeration of partial orders on a finite set|journal=Trans. Amer. Math. Soc.|year=1975|volume=205|pages=205–220|mr=0369090|doi=10.1090/s0002-9947-1975-0369090-9|last1=Kleitman|first1=Daniel J.|last2=Rothschild|first2=Bruce L.|url=http://dml.cz/bitstream/handle/10338.dmlcz/126183/MathBohem_122-1997-1_7.pdf|doi-access=free}} *{{cite journal|title=On Dedekind's problem: The number of isotone Boolean functions. II |journal=Trans. Amer. Math. Soc.|year=1975|volume=213|pages=373–390|mr=0382107|doi=10.1090/s0002-9947-1975-0382107-0|last1=Kleitman|first1=Daniel|last2=Markowsky|first2=George|doi-access=free}} *{{cite journal|title=The number of semigroups of order ''n''|journal=Proc. Amer. Math. Soc.|year=1976|volume=55|issue=1|pages=227–232|mr=0414380|doi=10.1090/s0002-9939-1976-0414380-0|last1=Kleitman|first1=Daniel J.|last2=Rothschild|first2=Bruce R.|last3=Spencer|first3=Joel H.|author-link3=Joel Spencer|doi-access=free}}<ref>The publication states "Bruce R. Rothschild", a typographical error for "Bruce L. Rothschild".</ref> *{{cite journal|title=A quasi-polynomial bound for the diameter of graphs of polyhedra|journal=Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.)|year=1992|volume=26|issue=2|pages=315–316|mr=1130448|doi=10.1090/s0273-0979-1992-00285-9|arxiv=math/9204233|last1=Kalai|first1=Gil|last2=Kleitman|first2=Daniel J.|s2cid=37821778}} *{{cite journal|title=Piercing convex sets|journal=Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.)|year=1992|volume=27|issue=2|pages=252–256|mr=1149871|doi=10.1090/s0273-0979-1992-00304-x|last1=Alon|first1=Noga|author-link=Noga Alon|last2=Kleitman|first2=Daniel J.|doi-access=free}} *{{cite journal|title=MSARI: Multiple sequence alignments for statistical detection of RNA secondary structure|journal=Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A|year=2004|volume=101|issue=33|pages=12102–12107|pmc=514400|doi=10.1073/pnas.0404193101|pmid=15304649|bibcode=2004PNAS..10112102C|last1=Coventry|first1=Alex|last2=Kleitman|first2=Daniel J.|last3=Berger|first3=Bonnie|doi-access=free}}

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20020620164054/http://www-math.mit.edu/~djk/index.html Kleitman's homepage] * {{cite journal|last1=Peck |first1=G. W. |author-link1=G. W. Peck| title=Kleitman and Combinatorics: A Celebration| journal=Discrete Mathematics| year=2002| volume=257|issue=2–3| pages=193–224| mr=1935723| doi=10.1016/S0012-365X(02)00595-2| doi-access=}} ([https://faculty.math.illinois.edu/~west/pubs/kcc.pdf article available] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210123132422/https://faculty.math.illinois.edu/~west/pubs/kcc.pdf |date=2021-01-23 }} on Douglas West's web page, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kleitman, Daniel}} Category:20th-century American mathematicians Category:21st-century American mathematicians Category:Combinatorialists Category:American operations researchers Category:Harvard University alumni Category:MIT School of Science faculty Category:Brandeis University faculty Category:1934 births Category:Living people Category:Educators from New York City Category:Mathematicians from New Jersey Category:Mathematicians from New York (state) Category:Morristown High School (Morristown, New Jersey) alumni Category:People from Morristown, New Jersey Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences