Wilhelmus Luxemburg

Who is Wilhelmus Luxemburg?

Wilhelmus Luxemburg is Professor of Mathematics, Emeritus at the California Institute of Technology.

He received his B.A. from the University of Leiden in 1950; his M.A., in 1953; his Ph.D., from the Delft Institute of Technology, in 1955. He was Assistant Professor at Caltech during 1958-60; Associate Professor, during 1960-62; Professor, during 1962-2000; Professor Emeritus, from 2000. He was the Executive Officer for Mathematics during 1970-85. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

Joseph Dauben attributes the ultrapower construction of the hyperreal numbers to Luxemburg in 1962. Such a construction was originally introduced by Edwin Hewitt in 1948, and popularized by Luxemburg in the 1960s.