Seidenberg was born on June 2, 1916 in Washington D.C.. He graduated with a B.A. from the University of Maryland in 1937. He completed his Ph.D. in mathematics from Johns Hopkins University in 1943. His Ph.D. thesis was Valuation Ideals in Rings of Polynomials in Two Variables.

Academic career

Seidenberg became an instructor in mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley in 1945. He reached the rank of full professor in 1958. He retired from Berkeley in 1987.

Contributions

Seidenberg was known for his research to commutative algebra, algebraic geometry, differential algebra, and the history of mathematics. He published Prime ideals and integral dependence written jointly with I S Cohen which greatly simplified the existing proofs of the going-up and going-down theorems of ideal theory. He also made important contributions to algebraic geometry. In 1950, he published a paper called The hyperplane sections of normal varieties which has proved fundamental in later advances. In 1968, he wrote Elements of the theory of algebraic curves, a book on algebraic geometry. He published several important papers.

Personal life

Seidenberg married Ebe Cagli. She was a writer. She and her family immigrated to the United States from Italy. The couple frequently visited Italy and Seidenberg held a visiting professorship at the University of Milan.

Death

Seidenberg died on May 3, 1988 in Milan, Italy. At the time of his death, he was in the midst of series of lectures at the University of Milan.

References

* O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Abraham Seidenberg", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Seidenberg.html .