Jürgen Moser, 1928–1999

Abstract

Except for the painful beginning and end, well-deserved good fortune accompanied Moser all his life. Accomplishment and recognition came to him early and lastingly. He was the first recipient of the G. D. Birkhoff Prize of the AMS and SIAM. He was honored by a Wolf Prize, medals were showered on him, academies vied to elect him as their member. He was an outstanding expositor, much in demand. He delivered the Gibbs lecture of the AMS, the Pauli lectures of the ETH, the Hardy lectures of Cambridge University, the Hermann Weyl lectures of the Accademia Lincei, and the von Neumann lecture of SIAM. He was president of the IMU for three years.

He was fortunate in having many good students, with whom he continued close scientific and personal relations. He loved his family fiercely, two daughters and a stepson, six grandchildren and charming and talented sons-in-law.

According to an old Roman proverb, ‘what doesn't destroy me makes me stronger’. This fits Jürgen, for in his early youth he was exposed to deadly danger, but survived the stronger for it. In 1938, the ten year old Jürgen was offered a chance to enroll in an elite boarding school for future leaders, but his parents who saw the Nazi's plan were able to extricate him. Jürgen's father was a neurologist, and as such was sometimes called upon to declare someone as ‘unfit to live’ according to the Nazi eugenics program. Jürgen's father, courageously, always refused to issue such certifications.