mathematics

James Demmel

James Demmel is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand James Demmel rather than just read about it. In short: James Weldon Demmel Jr. (born October 19, 1955) is an American mathematician and computer scientist, the Dr.

Key takeaways

James Demmel belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect James Demmel to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of James Demmel from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

James Weldon Demmel Jr. (born October 19, 1955) is an American mathematician and computer scientist, the Dr. Richard Carl Dehmel Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1999, Demmel was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to numerical linear algebra and scientific computing.

Biography Born in Pittsburgh, Demmel did his undergraduate studies at the California Institute of Technology, graduating in 1975 with a B.S. in mathematics. He earned his Ph.D. in computer science in 1983 from UC Berkeley, under the supervision of William Kahan; his dissertation was entitled A Numerical Analyst's Jordan Canonical Form. After holding a faculty position at New York University for six years, he moved to Berkeley in 1990.

Academic works Demmel is known for his work on LAPACK, a software library for numerical linear algebra and more generally for research in numerical algorithms combining mathematical rigor with high performance implementation. Prometheus, a parallel multigrid finite element solver written by Demmel, Mark Adams, and Robert Taylor, won the Carl Benz Award at Supercomputing 1999 and the Gordon Bell Prize for Adams and his coworkers at Supercomputing 2004.

Honors and awards Demmel was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1999, a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 1999, a fellow of the IEEE in 2001, a fellow of SIAM in 2009, and a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 2011. Demmel was one of two scientists honored in 1986 with the Leslie Fox Prize for Numerical Analysis. In 1993, Demmel won the J.H. Wilkinson Prize in Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, and in 2010, he was the winner of the IEEE's Sidney Fernbach Award "for computational science leadership in creating adaptive, innovative, high-performance linear algebra software". In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. He received the IEEE Computer Society Charles Babbage Award in 2013.

Personal life Demmel is married to Katherine Yelick, who is also an ACM Fellow and professor of electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley, and Associate Lab Director for Computing Sciences at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

References

External links

Home page at UC Berkeley

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with James Demmel

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what James Demmel claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to James Demmel before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about James Demmel ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of James Demmel

In research: James Demmel appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses James Demmel in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: James Demmel is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1955 births, 20th-century American mathematicians, 21st-century American mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for James Demmel outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study James Demmel in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what James Demmel means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain James Demmel out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is James Demmel in simple terms?

James Weldon Demmel Jr. (born October 19, 1955) is an American mathematician and computer scientist, the Dr.

Why does James Demmel matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study James Demmel?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on James Demmel.