View source for Biography:Julia Robinson

{{Short description|American mathematician (1919–1985)}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Julia Hall Bowman Robinson
| image             = Julia Robinson 1975.jpg
| image_size        = 200px
| caption           = Julia Robinson in 1975
| birth_name        = Julia Hall Bowman
| birth_date        = December 8, 1919
| birth_place       = St. Louis, Missouri, {{wipe|United States}}
| death_date        = July 30, 1985 (aged 65)
| death_place       = Oakland, {{wipe|California}}, United States
| residence         =
| citizenship       = {{wipe|United States}}
| nationality       = American
| ethnicity         = 
| field             = [[Biography:Mathematician|Mathematician]]
| work_institutions = [[Organization:University of California, Berkeley|University of California, Berkeley]]
| alma_mater        = University of California, Berkeley
| doctoral_advisor  = [[Biography:Alfred Tarski|Alfred Tarski]]
| doctoral_students = 
| known_for         = [[Diophantine equation]]s <br /> [[Philosophy:Decidability (logic)|Decidability]] <br /> [[Diophantine set|MRDP theorem]] <br /> Robinson's proof
| author_abbrev_bot = 
| author_abbrev_zoo = 
| prizes            = Noether Lecture (1982) <br /> MacArthur Fellow
| religion          = 
| footnotes         = 
| signature         = 
| spouse            = [[Biography:Raphael M. Robinson|Raphael M. Robinson]] 
}}
'''Julia Hall Bowman Robinson''' (December 8, 1919{{spaced ndash}}July 30, 1985) was an American [[Biography:Mathematician|mathematician]] noted for her contributions to the fields of [[Computability theory|computability theory]] and [[Computational complexity theory|computational complexity theory]]—most notably in [[Decision problem|decision problem]]s. Her work on [[Hilbert's tenth problem]] (now known as Matiyasevich's theorem or the MRDP theorem) played a crucial role in its ultimate resolution. Robinson was a 1983 MacArthur Fellow.

== Early years ==
Robinson was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Ralph Bowers Bowman and Helen (Hall) Bowman.<ref name="NAS Memoir" />{{Rp|4}} Her father owned a machine equipment company while her mother was a school teacher before marriage.<ref name="NAS Memoir" />{{Rp|4}} Her mother died when Robinson was 2 years old and her father remarried.<ref name="NAS Memoir" />{{Rp|4}} Her older sister was the mathematical popularizer and biographer Constance Reid and her younger sister is Billie Comstock.<ref name="NAS Memoir" />{{Rp|22}}

When she was 9 years old, she was diagnosed with scarlet fever, which was shortly followed by rheumatic fever.<ref name="Autobiography">{{cite book|url=https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/images/upload_library/22/Polya/07468342.di020720.02p00912.pdf|title=The Autobiography of Julia Robinson|last1=Reid|first1=Constance|date=1986|publisher=The College Mathematics Journal|pages=3–21|access-date=22 November 2018}}</ref>{{Rp|4}} This caused her to miss two years of school. When she was well again, she was privately tutored by a retired primary school teacher. In just one year, she was able to complete fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth year curriculum.<ref name="NAS Memoir" />{{Rp|4}} While in junior high school, she was given an IQ test in which she scored a 98, a couple points below average, which she explains away as being "unaccustomed to taking tests."<ref name="Autobiography" /> Nevertheless, Julia stood out in San Diego High School as the only female student taking advanced classes in mathematics and physics.<ref name="NAS Memoir" />{{Rp|4}} She graduated high school with a Bausch-Lomb award for being overall outstanding in science.<ref name=":0" />

In 1936, Robinson entered [[Organization:San Diego State University|San Diego State University]] at the age of 16.<ref name="NAS Memoir" />{{Rp|4}} Dissatisfied with the mathematics curriculum at San Diego State University, she transferred to [[Organization:University of California, Berkeley|University of California, Berkeley]] in 1939 for her senior year. Before she was able to transfer to UC Berkeley, her father committed suicide in 1937 due to financial insecurities.<ref name="NAS Memoir" />{{Rp|5}} She took five mathematics courses in her first year at Berkeley,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.nap.edu/read/4560/chapter/21#455|doi = 10.17226/4560|title = Biographical Memoirs|year = 1994|isbn = 978-0-309-04976-4}}</ref> one being a [[Number theory|number theory]] course taught by [[Biography:Raphael M. Robinson|Raphael M. Robinson]]. She received her BA degree in 1940,<ref name="NAS Memoir" />{{Rp|5}} and later married Raphael in 1941.<ref name="NAS Memoir" />{{Rp|5}}

==Mathematical contributions==

After graduating, Robinson continued in graduate studies at Berkeley. As a graduate student, Robinson was employed as a teaching assistant with the Department of Mathematics and later as a statistics lab assistant by [[Biography:Jerzy Neyman|Jerzy Neyman]] in the Berkeley Statistical Laboratory, where her work resulted in her first published paper, titled "''A Note on Exact Sequential Analysis"''.<ref name="NAS Memoir" />{{Rp|5}}

Robinson received her PhD degree in 1948 under [[Biography:Alfred Tarski|Alfred Tarski]] with a dissertation on "Definability and Decision Problems in Arithmetic".<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|14}}
Her dissertation showed that the theory of the [[Rational number|rational number]]s was an [[Undecidable problem|undecidable problem]], by demonstrating that elementary number theory could be defined in terms of the rationals. (Elementary number theory was already known to be undecidable by [[Biography:Kurt Gödel|Gödel's]] first incompleteness theorem.)<ref name="Julia" />

Here is an excerpt from her thesis:<blockquote>"This consequence of our discussion is interesting because of a result of Gödel which shows that the variety of relations between integers (and operations on integers) which are arithmetically definable in terms of addition and multiplication of integers is very great. For instance from Theorem 3.2 and Gödel's result, we can conclude that the relation which holds between three rationals ''A'', ''B'', and ''N'' if and only if ''N'' is a positive integer and ''A''=''B''<sup>''N''</sup> is definable in the arithmetic of rationals."<ref>Robinson, J. (1949). Definability and decision problems in arithmetic. ''[[Journal of Symbolic Logic]],'' ''14''(2), 98-114. {{doi|10.2307/2266510}}</ref></blockquote>

===Hilbert's tenth problem===
[[Hilbert's tenth problem]] asks for an algorithm to determine whether a [[Diophantine equation]] has any solutions in [[Integer|integer]]s. Robinson began exploring methods for this problem in 1948 while at the [[Organization:RAND Corporation|RAND Corporation]]. Her work regarding Diophantine representation for exponentiation and her method of using [[Pell's equation]] led to the J.R. hypothesis (named after Robinson) in 1950. Proving this hypothesis would be central in the eventual solution. Her research publications would lead to collaborations with [[Biography:Martin Davis (mathematician)|Martin Davis]], [[Biography:Hilary Putnam|Hilary Putnam]], and [[Biography:Yuri Matiyasevich|Yuri Matiyasevich]].<ref>{{cite book|title=The Decision Problem for Exponential Diophantine Equations|last1=Robinson|first1=Julia|last2=Davis|first2=Martin|last3=Putnam|first3=Hilary|date=1961|publisher=Annals of Mathematics|location=Princeton University}}</ref>

In 1950, Robinson first met Martin Davis, then an instructor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who was trying to show that all sets with listability property were Diophantine in contrast to Robinson's attempt to show that a few special sets—including prime numbers and the powers of 2—were Diophantine. Robinson and Davis started collaborating in 1959 and were later joined by Hilary Putnam, they then showed that the solutions to a “Goldilocks” equation was key to Hilbert's tenth problem.<ref name="sciencenews.org">{{Cite web|url=https://www.sciencenews.org/article/how-julia-robinson-helped-define-limits-mathematical-knowledge|title = How Julia Robinson helped define the limits of mathematical knowledge|date = 22 November 2019}}</ref>

In 1970, the problem was resolved in the negative; that is, they showed that no such algorithm can exist. Through the 1970s, Robinson continued working with Matiyasevich on one of their solution's corollaries, which she once stated that

<blockquote>there is a constant ''N'' such that, given a Diophantine equation with any number of parameters and in any number of unknowns, one can effectively transform this equation into another with the same parameters but in only ''N'' unknowns such that both equations are solvable or unsolvable for the same values of the parameters.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://logic.pdmi.ras.ru/~yumat/Julia/|title=My Collaboration with JULIA ROBINSON|website=logic.pdmi.ras.ru|access-date=2018-08-28}}</ref></blockquote>

At the time the solution was first published, the authors established ''N'' = 200. Robinson and Matiyasevich's joint work would produce further reduction to 9 unknowns.<ref name=":0" />

===Game theory ===
During the late 1940s, Robinson spent a year or so at the [[Organization:RAND Corporation|RAND Corporation]] in Santa Monica researching game theory. Her 1949 technical report, "On the Hamiltonian game (a traveling salesman problem),"<ref name="Robinson1949">{{cite journal |last1=Robinson |first1=Julia |title=On the Hamiltonian game (a traveling salesman problem) |date=5 December 1949 |issue=RM-303 |url=http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=AD0204961 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200629071813/http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=AD0204961 |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 29, 2020 |access-date=2 May 2020 |publisher=The Rand Corporation |location=Santa Monica, CA |language=en}}</ref> is the first publication to use the phrase "[[Travelling salesman problem|travelling salesman problem]]".<ref name="Schrijver2005">[[Biography:Alexander Schrijver|Alexander Schrijver]]'s 2005 paper "On the history of combinatorial optimization (till 1960). Handbook of Discrete Optimization (K. Aardal, G.L. Nemhauser, R. Weismantel, eds.), Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2005, pp. 1–68.[http://homepages.cwi.nl/~lex/files/histco.ps PS],[http://homepages.cwi.nl/~lex/files/histco.pdf PDF]</ref> Shortly thereafter she published a paper called "''An Iterative Method of Solving a Game''" in 1951.<ref name="NAS Memoir">
{{cite encyclopedia|last=Feferman|first=Solomon|encyclopedia=Biographical Memoirs|title=Julia Bowman Robinson, 1919–1985|url=http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/robinson-julia.pdf|access-date=2008-06-18|year=1994|publisher=National Academy of Sciences|volume=63|location=Washington, DC|isbn=978-0-309-04976-4|pages=1–28}}
</ref>{{Rp|7}} In her paper, she proved that the [[Fictitious play|fictitious play]] dynamics converges to the mixed strategy [[Nash equilibrium]] in two-player zero-sum games. This was posed by [[Biography:George W. Brown (academic)|George W. Brown]] as a prize problem at [[Organization:RAND Corporation|RAND Corporation]].<ref name="Julia" />{{Rp|59}}

==Professorship at UC Berkeley==
Robinson was not allowed to teach in the Mathematics Department at Berkeley after marrying [[Biography:Raphael M. Robinson|Raphael M. Robinson]] in 1941, as there was a rule that prevented family members from working together in the same department.<ref name="NAS Memoir" /> Robinson then instead stayed in the statistics department despite wanting to teach calculus. 
Although Raphael retired in 1973, it wasn't until 1976 she was offered a full-time professorship position at Berkeley after the department heard of her nomination to the National Academy of Sciences.<ref name=":1" />

==Honors==
After [[Biography:Yuri Matiyasevich|Yuri Matiyasevich]] solved Hilbert's tenth problem by means of the J.R. hypothesis and the [[Fibonacci number]] sequence, [[Biography:Saunders Mac Lane|Saunders Mac Lane]] nominated Robinson for the National Academy of Sciences.<ref name="Tenured Women at Berkeley Before 1980">{{cite journal | last=Kessel | first=Cathy | title=Tenured Women at Berkeley Before 1980 | journal=[[Organization:Notices of the American Mathematical Society|Notices of the American Mathematical Society]] | publisher=American Mathematical Society (AMS) | volume=69 | issue=3 | date=2022-03-01 | issn=0002-9920 | doi=10.1090/noti2448 | page=427| doi-access=free }}</ref> Alfred Tarski and Jerzy Neyman also flew out to Washington, D.C. to further explain to the National Academy of Sciences why her work is so important and how it tremendously contributed to mathematics.<ref name=":1" /> In 1975, she was the first female mathematician to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences.<ref name="NAS Memoir" />

Robinson was chosen as the first female president of the American Mathematical Society (for the term of 1983–1984) but was unable to complete her term as she was suffering from [[Medicine:Leukemia|leukemia]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Julia_Bowman_Robinson.aspx |title=Julia Bowman Robinson |website=Encyclopedia.com}}</ref> It took time for her to accept the nomination, as stated in her autobiography:<blockquote>"In 1982 I was nominated for the presidency of the American Mathematical Society. I realized that I had been chosen because I was a woman and because I had the seal of approval, as it were, of the National Academy. After discussion with Raphael, who thought I should decline and save my energy for mathematics, and other members of my family, who differed with him, I decided that as a woman and a mathematician I had no alternative but to accept. I have always tried to do everything I could to encourage talented women to become research mathematicians. I found my service as president of the Society taxing but very, very satisfying."<ref name=":0" /></blockquote>

In 1982, Robinson gave the Noether Lecture of the Association for Women in Mathematics; her lecture was called ''Functional Equations in Arithmetic.''<ref>{{cite web|url=https://awm-math.org/awards/noether-lectures/noether-lectures-1982/|publisher=Association for Women in Mathematics|title=Emmy Noether Lectures, 1982 Lecturer: Julia Robinson|access-date=2022-08-30}}</ref> Around this time she also was given the MacArthur Fellowship prize of $60,000. In 1985, she also became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

==Political work==
In the 1950s Robinson was active in local Democratic party activities. She was Alan Cranston's campaign manager in Contra Costa County when he ran for his first political office, state controller.<ref name="Julia">
{{cite book|title=Julia: A life in mathematics|url=https://archive.org/details/julialifeinmathe0000reid|url-access=registration|last=Reid|first=Constance|publisher=Mathematical Association of America|year=1996|isbn=0-88385-520-8|location=Washington, DC}}
</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Being Julia Robinson's Sister|last=Reid|first=Constance|publisher=Notices of the American Mathematical Society|year=1996|location=Providence, RI|pages=1486–1492}}</ref>
{{Blockquote
|text="I don’t remember exactly what happened, but the end result was that Julia involved herself during those years in the nitty-gritty of Democratic Party politics—she registered voters, stuffed envelopes, rang door- bells in neighborhoods where people expected to be paid for their vote. She even served as Alan Cranston’s campaign manager for Contra Costa County when he successfully ran for state controller—his first political office."|sign=Constance Reid <ref name=":1" />|source=}}

Robinson was also a volunteer for Adlai Stevenson’s presidential campaigns.<ref name="sciencenews.org"/>

== Death and legacy ==
In 1984, Robinson was diagnosed with [[Medicine:Leukemia|leukemia]], and she died in Oakland, California, on July 30, 1985.<ref name="NAS Memoir" /><ref name="Julia" />
{{Blockquote
|text="One of Julia’s last requests was that there be no funeral service and that those wishing to make a gift in her memory contribute to the Alfred Tarski Fund, which she had been instrumental in setting up in honor of her late teacher, friend, and colleague. Modest to the end, she let her character and achievements speak for themselves."|sign=Solomon Feferman <ref name="NAS Memoir" />|source=}}<nowiki/>

One of her sisters, Constance Reid, won the Mathematical Association of America's [[Biography:George Pólya|George Pólya]] Award in 1987 for writing the article "The Autobiography of Julia Robinson".<ref>
{{cite web
|url= http://www.maa.org/Awards/polya.html
|title= The Mathematical Association of America's George Pólya Award
|access-date= 2008-06-07
|publisher= Mathematical Association of America
}}</ref><ref name="NAS Memoir" />{{Rp|22}}

The Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival, sponsored by the American Institute of Mathematics from 2013 to the present and by the [[Organization:Mathematical Sciences Research Institute|Mathematical Sciences Research Institute]] from 2007 to 2013, was named in her honor.

[[Biography:George Csicsery|George Csicsery]] produced and directed a one-hour documentary about Robinson titled ''Julia Robinson and Hilbert's Tenth Problem'', that premiered at the Joint Mathematics Meeting in San Diego on January 7, 2008.<ref>[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1252491/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 Julia Robinson and Hilbert's Tenth Problem] on IMdB</ref> ''[[Organization:Notices of the American Mathematical Society|Notices of the American Mathematical Society]]'' printed a film review<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wood|first=Carol|date=May 2008|title=Film Review: Julia Robinson and Hilbert's Tenth Problem|url=https://www.ams.org/notices/200805/tx080500573p.pdf|journal=Notices of the American Mathematical Society|location=Providence, RI|publisher=American Mathematical Society|volume=55|issue=5|pages=573–575|issn=0002-9920|access-date=2008-06-06}}</ref> and an interview with the director.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Casselman|first=Bill|date=May 2008|title=Interview with George Csicsery|url=https://www.ams.org/notices/200805/tx080500576p.pdf|journal=Notices of the American Mathematical Society|location=Providence, RI|publisher=American Mathematical Society|volume=55|issue=5|pages=576–578|issn=0002-9920|access-date=2008-06-06}}</ref> The ''College Mathematics Journal'' also published a film review.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Murray|first=Margaret A. M.|date=September 2009|title=A Film of One's Own|journal=College Mathematics Journal|location=Washington, DC|publisher=Mathematical Association of America|volume=40|issue=4|pages=306–310|issn=0746-8342}}</ref>

==Notes==
*{{DSB |first=Martin |last=Davis |title=Robinson, Julia Bowman |volume=24 |pages=265–268}}
*{{cite book|editor=Feferman, Solomon|title=The Collected Works of Julia Robinson|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_33D84OENIAC|year=1996|location=Providence, Rhode Island|publisher=American Mathematical Society|isbn=978-0-8218-0575-6}}
*{{Cite journal | last1=Matijasevich | first1=Yuri | title=My collaboration with Julia Robinson |url=http://logic.pdmi.ras.ru/~yumat/Julia/ | doi=10.1007/BF03024472 | year=1992 | journal=[[The Mathematical Intelligencer]] | issn=0343-6993 | volume=14 | issue=4 | pages=38–45 | mr=1188142 | s2cid=123582378 }}
*{{cite web | url=https://www.sciencenews.org/article/how-julia-robinson-helped-define-limits-mathematical-knowledge | title=How Julia Robinson helped define the limits of mathematical knowledge | first=Evelyn | last=Lamb | date=22 November 2019 | website=ScienceNews.org | access-date=24 November 2019 }}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/robinson.htm "Julia Bowman Robinson", Biographies of Women Mathematicians], [[Organization:Agnes Scott College|Agnes Scott College]]
*{{MacTutor Biography|id=Robinson_Julia}}
*[http://logic.pdmi.ras.ru/~yumat/JRobinson/index.html Julia Bowman Robinson on the Internet] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20050319230207/http://www.fmi.uni-stuttgart.de/ti/personen/Matiyasevich/JRobinson/index.html mirror])

{{AMS Presidents}}


{{DEFAULTSORT:Robinson, Julia}}
[[Category:Number theorists]]
[[Category:Game theorists]]

{{Sourceattribution|Julia Robinson}}