Dr. David D. Bleecker, PhD

February 6, 1948 - April 3, 2016

David D. Bleecker was born February 6, 1948 in Summit, NJ. David D. Bleecker received his PhD from the University of California at Berkley in 1973 and was appointed to the University of Hawaii that same year. He retired from the University of Hawaii in 2010. He received the George Polya Award from the Mathematical Association of America in 1999 for a paper he co-authored "the world's biggest taco" ("A taco is the solid formed by bending a circular tortilla partway around a cylinder and filling it in the obvious way-to the border and not beyond!"; they wrote. In the paper, Bleecker and Larry Wallen used differential geometry to determine the optimum shape of a taco shell as a teaching exercise for students.) * He authored and co-authored scholarly articles and books on Mathematics including his Thesis "Contributions to the Theory of Surfaces, * Gauge theory and variational principles, Addison-Wesley 1981, Dover 2005 * with George Csordas: Basic partial differential equations, Van Nostrand 1992 * with Bern helmet Booss: Topology and analysis: the Atiyah-Singer index formula and gauge- theoretic physics, Springer Verlag, 1985 (English version of an orginally Booss published in German book) Dr Bleecker was a brilliant man. He was, as we all are, first, human with all the foibles and difficulties that presents. And, in the words of another mathematician "In the broad light of day mathematicians check their equations and their proofs, leaving no stone unturned in their search for rigour. But, at night, under the full moon, they dream, they float among the stars and wonder at the miracle of the heavens. They are inspired. Without dreams there is no art, no mathematics, no life." Michael Atiya (Notices of the AMS, 2010) Services for Dr. Bleecker will be held 12:30p.m.- 1:30p.m., Thursday, April 21st, 2016 at the Upper Chapel at the Valley of the Temples.