Cosmopolitan Oscar Buneman (1913-1993): his serpentine path from Milan to Stanford

Abstract

Oscar Buneman (1913 Milan, Italy-1993 near Stanford, USA) was born to a cosmopolitan mercantile family of Hamburg, Germany. He crossed many borders of states forced by political circumstances first (WWI, the Nazis, WWII) and by his own decisions later on. He changed his citizenship to British in 1944 and his name some years later. He also crossed borders between scientific disciplines: he started as a student of (pure) mathematics and physics in Hamburg and took exams in (applied) mathematics and theoretical physics in Manchester. For several years he worked as a university lecturer of mathematics at Cambridge University and became a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University later in his life, heading an Institute for Plasma Research there. He spent sabbatical years at institutes for cosmic physics/space research in Italy and Japan. Stanford students thought that he was British by birth, but in his private life he was a Californian outdoors person. He considered mathematical elegance a ve...