mathematics

Marguerite Frank

Marguerite Frank 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 Marguerite Frank rather than just read about it. In short: Marguerite Straus Frank (September 8, 1927 – December 11, 2024) was a French-American mathematician who was a pioneer in convex optimization theory and mathematical programming. Education After attending secondary schooling in Paris and Toronto, Frank contributed largely to the fields of transportation theory and Lie algebras, which later became the topic of her PhD thesis, New Simple Lie Algebras.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Marguerite Straus Frank (September 8, 1927 – December 11, 2024) was a French-American mathematician who was a pioneer in convex optimization theory and mathematical programming.

Education After attending secondary schooling in Paris and Toronto, Frank contributed largely to the fields of transportation theory and Lie algebras, which later became the topic of her PhD thesis, New Simple Lie Algebras. She was one of the first female PhD students in mathematics at Harvard University, completing her dissertation in 1956, with Abraham Adrian Albert as her advisor.

Contributions Together with Philip Wolfe in 1956 at Princeton, she invented the Frank–Wolfe algorithm, an iterative optimization method for general constrained non-linear problems.

Personal life Marguerite Frank was born in France and migrated to U.S. during the war in 1939. She was married to Joseph Frank from 1953 until his death in 2013. He was a professor of literature at Stanford and an author of widely acclaimed critical biography of Dostoevsky. Frank died on December 11, 2024, at the age of 97.

Selected publications Frank, M (1954). "A New Class of Simple Lie Algebras". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 40 (8): 713–719. Bibcode:1954PNAS...40..713S. doi:10.1073/pnas.40.8.713. PMC 534147. PMID 16589544. Frank, M.; Wolfe, P. (1956). "An algorithm for quadratic programming". Naval Research Logistics Quarterly. 3 (1–2): 95–110. doi:10.1002/nav.3800030109. Frank, M. (1964). "Two New Classes of Simple Lie Algebras". Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. 112 (3): 456–482. doi:10.2307/1994156. JSTOR 1994156. Frank, M. (1973). "A New Simple Lie Algebra of Characteristic Three". Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society. 38 (1): 43–46. doi:10.2307/2038767. JSTOR 2038767. Frank, M. (1981). "The Braess paradox". Mathematical Programming. 20: 283–302. doi:10.1007/BF01589354. S2CID 206800589. Frank, M.; Mladineo, R. H. (1993). "Computer generation of network cost from one link's equilibrium data". Annals of Operations Research. 44 (3): 261. doi:10.1007/BF02072642. S2CID 33907141.

References

External links "Marguerite Frank - Inventor of the Frank-Wolfe Algorithm - Honorary Discussion Panel". Frank-Wolfe and Greedy Algorithms (NIPS 2013 Workshop). YouTube. Retrieved 2017-03-06.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Marguerite Frank

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Marguerite Frank 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 Marguerite Frank 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 Marguerite Frank 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 Marguerite Frank

In research: Marguerite Frank 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 Marguerite Frank 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: Marguerite Frank is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1927 births, 2024 deaths, 20th-century American statisticians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Marguerite Frank 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.

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How to study Marguerite Frank in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Marguerite Frank 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 Marguerite Frank out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Marguerite Frank in simple terms?

Marguerite Straus Frank (September 8, 1927 – December 11, 2024) was a French-American mathematician who was a pioneer in convex optimization theory and mathematical programming. Education After attending secondary schooling in Paris and Toronto, Frank contributed largely to the fields of transporta…

Why does Marguerite Frank 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 Marguerite Frank?

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 Marguerite Frank.