Biography:Bjarni Jónsson

Short description: Icelandic mathematician (1920–2016)

For the artist, see Bjarni Jónsson (artist). For the Icelandic footballer, see Bjarni Jónsson (footballer).

Bjarni Jónsson
Born	(1920-02-15)February 15, 1920 Dragháls, Iceland
Died	September 30, 2016(2016-09-30) (aged 96) Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
Nationality	Icelandic
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley
Known for	Jónsson's lemma, Jónsson algebras, ω-Jónsson functions, Jónsson cardinals, Jónsson terms, Jónsson–Tarski algebras, Jónsson–Tarski duality
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics, logic
Institutions	Brown University Vanderbilt University University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Doctoral advisor	Alfred Tarski
Doctoral students	Peter Fillmore Frederick Galvin

Bjarni Jónsson (February 15, 1920 – September 30, 2016) was an Icelandic mathematician and logician working in universal algebra, lattice theory, model theory and set theory. He was emeritus distinguished professor of mathematics at Vanderbilt University and the honorary editor in chief of Algebra Universalis. He received his PhD in 1946 at UC Berkeley under supervision of Alfred Tarski.

In 2012, he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

Work

Jónsson's lemma as well as several mathematical objects are named after him, among them Jónsson algebras, ω-Jónsson functions, Jónsson cardinals, Jónsson terms, Jónsson–Tarski algebras and Jónsson–Tarski duality.

Publications

• Jónsson, Bjarni (1972), Topics in universal algebra, Lecture Notes in Mathematics, 250, Berlin, New York: Springer-Verlag, doi:10.1007/BFb0058648, ISBN 978-3-540-05722-2 

Further reading

• Kirby A. Baker, Bjarni Jónsson's contributions in algebra, Algebra Universalis, September 1994, Volume 31, Issue 3, pp. 306–336.
• J. B. Nation, Jónsson's contributions to lattice theory, Algebra Universalis, September 1994, Volume 31, Issue 3, pp. 430–445.

External links

• Bjarni Jónsson's homepage