Shlomo Breuer

Shlomo Breuer, a professor of applied mathematics at Tel Aviv University, died on May 21, 1992 at the age of 60. He is survived by his wife, Sophie, two daughters, and a son, all of whom live in Israel.

Breuer was born in Germany in 1931 and moved to Israel in 1934 with his family. He was educated in the U.S., receiving a B.Sc. in mathematics from City College of the City University of New York and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Brown University, where his dissertation on linear viscoelasticity was directed by E.T. Onat. From 1963 to 1966, he was a senior staff scientist at Avco's missile systems division in Wilmington, Massachusetts.

Breuer returned to Israel in 1966, joining the applied mathematics faculty at Tel-Aviv University, where he remained until his death. He chaired the department at various times during the 1970's.

Breuer did significant research in several areas of applied mathematics and in mathematics education. His early papers on linear-visco-elasticity, some of which were written with Onat, have become standard references on the subject.

At Tel-Aviv University, Breuer wrote a number of papers with David Gottlieb on ordinary differential equations. he then collaborated with J.J. Roseman on spatial decay theorems for systems of linear and nonlinear elliptic and parabolic equations. He wrote several papers with Roseman, and one with Marian Aron, on elastic strain energy and other integral norms for problems in nonlinear elastostatics.

During the last years of his life, Breuer devoted a good part of his time to research with Gideon Zwas on education in numerical mathematics, particularly at the precalculus level. Their book "Numerical Math: A Lab Approach" was published by Cambridge University Press on May, 1993.