Peter D. Lax, PhD
Professor Emeritus of Mathematics
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
New York University

Peter D. Lax is professor emeritus of mathematics at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. He has studied many areas of partial differential equations, the existence of solutions, their properties and how to construct them numerically. During World War II, Lax was assigned to the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico; in 1945-46, he worked on neutron transport. During trips in subsequent years to Los Alamos, mathematician John von Neumann helped spark his interest in shock waves, an area to which Lax later made important research contributions.

Lax received his PhD from the Courant Institute in 1949. He returned to the Courant Institute in 1954 after working at Los Alamos National Laboratory with von Neumann on devising schemes for simulating flows with many interacting shocks. He has spent his professional career at New York University, making significant contributions to both mathematics and scientific computing, including partial differential equations, integral systems, computational fluid dynamics, and hyperbolic conservation laws.

Lax has done foundational work on finding solutions to equations that describe the way a single wave moves. It has been long noticed, for example, that a single water wave down a canal will preserve its shape for astonishing distances; his work furthered understanding of such phenomena. His varied contributions touch areas such as scattering theory and modern computational mathematics.

He has received numerous honors for his work, including the National Medal of Science, the Semmelweis Medal, the Wiener Prize, and the Wolf Prize. As an extremely distinguished mathematical expositor, he has received the Lester R. Ford Award and the Chauvenet Prize. In 2005, Lax received the Abel Prize for his groundbreaking contributions to the theory and application of partial differential equations and to the computation of their solutions.

In recognition of his substantial and notable research contributions in the mathematical sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology is pleased to confer the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa, upon Peter D. Lax.