George Csordas Obituary

Just now, I learned of the George's death. My deepest sympathies to his widow and family. Thoroughout my career, I was aware of George's research, and we communicated a bit, but I only had the pleasure of meeting him rather late in life and indeed it was a real pleasure to spend a week with him at the American Institute of Mahtematics at his kind invitation.

(This is a written version of my remarks in the service. - JBN)
I have been asked to address George's contributions to mathematics
and the University of Hawai`i.
George Csordas was born in 1941 in Budapest. In 1956, he and
his older brother Paul escaped from Hungary during the Hungarian
Revolution, and emigrated to Canada. He completed high school at
St. Michael's College School and got his undergraduate degree from
the University of Toronto.
Paul remains in Toronto to this day, but George went to Case West-
ern Reserve in Cleveland for graduate work in mathematics. In those
days NFL quarterbacks had to have day jobs, and George took two
classes from Frank Ryan, quarterback of the Cleveland Browns. George
earned his PhD from Case Western in 1969, and got a job at the Uni-
versity of Hawai`i. There he remained for the rest of his life, retiring
in 2014. After being at UH for a couple of years, he and Bev bought
their home in Kailua, near the high school, and lived there for the rest
of his life.
Like the rest of us, George taught calculus nearly every semester
until his retirement. The exceptions were due to the fact that every
few years, your turn would roll around to teach Math 100, Math for
Poets. He must have done a good job, because he won a University
Excellence in Teaching Award in 1985.
George and David Bleecker alternated in teaching Math 402, partial
differential equations. After about fifteen years of this, they collabo-
rated and turned their notes into THE book, Basic Partial Differential
Equations, published in 1992. A typical review called it "Hands down
the best introductory book to PDEs." George's teaching philosophy is
indicated by a couple of quotes from the Introduction. "... Despite gen-
eral impressions given (perhaps unwittingly) by mathematical gurus,
any valid mathematical result or concept, regardless of how `advanced'
it is, can be broken down into elementary, trivial pieces which are easily
understood by all who desire to do so." AND "... It is easier to build
from the ground up than from the roof down."
George almost owned the graduate complex variables course, Math
644. Very occasionally someone else was allowed to teach it, but basi-
cally, in those days no one got a graduate degree in mathematics from
UH with passing George's 644. This caused a certain amount of fear
and trembling.
One summer I had to teach 644 as a reading course to a master's
student who had finished her research and thesis, and all the other
courses, but had put off Math 644, and now she had a job on Guam
in the fall. So I asked George what to do, and he replied, "Easy, use
Schaum's Outline for Complex Variables. It has everything in Ahlfors
(the classic text) and is easier to read."
George was also an inspirational graduate advisor. He directed seven
PhD dissertations and three Master's theses over the years, besides
serving on numerous graduate committees. He was the departmental
Graduate Chair from 1977 to 1979.
Even more important for the growth of the department, George col-
laborated with other faculty members in his research. This is truly
what it means to be a mathematical colleague. George published 75
math papers according to MathSciNet, not counting conference pre-
sentations. From our department, he had many papers with each of
Tom Craven (22) and Wayne Smith (8), and one or more with Jack
Williamson, Tom Pitcher, Mike Hilden, Tom Ramsey, David Stegenga,
Marvin Ortel, and David Bleecker. From outside the department, he
had many influential publications with the late Richard Varga (13) of
Kent State, also Hungarian and also with a degree from Case Western,
and also an athlete in his younger days.
Besides writing papers and books with members of the department,
George played tennis with David Bleecker once a week for years, and
often with other members of the department, notably the Freeses. He
swam two miles most days, and many times did the Waikiki Rough
Water Swim.
For 30 years, George's office was two down from mine on the 4th
floor of Keller Hall at UH. After 2014, we shared an offce in the Leonhard
Euler Retirement Home for Senior Mathematicians. He and I both
enjoyed coming in on Sunday afternoons, when everything was quiet
and peaceful.
George loved language. He knew Hungarian, English, French, Ger-
man, and Latin. One of my fondest memories is how we would come
into my office with the most inane questions about grammar. This one
I remember in particular. He walked in and said, "J.B., you are a na-
tive speaker, you can help me with this question. What is the proper
use of the word pleonasm?"
I should say a word about the substance of George's research. In
the 1850's Bernhard Riemann considered a function zeta(x) related to the
distribution of prime numbers amongst all numbers. He conjectured
that his function was zero only for certain values of x, some real and
some imaginary. This is known as the Riemann Hypothesis, and is one
of the most famous unsolved problems in mathematics. No one knows
whether Riemann's conjecture is true or not. George, working with
Tom Craven, Wayne Smith, Richard Varga, and his students, found
various equivalent formulations of the Riemann Hypothesis, which in
principle should be easier to solve, though they may or may not actually
be easier. George was convinced that the Riemann Hypothesis was
false, and did numerous computer calculations with very high precision
to try to find a counterexample. I worked with him on this, but we
were never able to decide one way or the other. When you are doing
computations to 1000 or 1500 place accuracy, the computer programs
can make unpredictable errors.
It is easy to say someone will be missed in general. Hopefully these
reminisces will show some of the manyways in which George Csordas
will be missed by his fellow mathematicians and colleagues at UH.

Dr. Csordas was one of the University of Hawaii professors I was fortunate to learn from and become acquainted with as we would often be walking to Varsity Theatre at the same time to his entry-level Math 100 class many years ago, and chat on the way down. I sat right in front to avoid distractions and learn as much as I could. His knowledge and passion for teaching mathematical concepts, not just computation, were inspiring. Some of it was beyond my ability to completely understand, but the concepts and thinking that he tried to share have stayed with me and helped me to solve abstract problems and apply logic over the years since then. I have always been thankful for his lectures and approachable attitude towards me and other students who wanted to learn. He has surely also made a great impact on other students' lives too. Please accept my sincere appreciation for his life and work; and, my condolences for his passing.

I met professor George Csordas during my academic visits of the mathematics department of the University of Hawai`i at Manoa where he has been a professor of mathematics until his retirement.
I was always impressed by his encyclopedic knowledge of mathematics, his culture and his devotion to mathematics. He had a large spectrum of interests. He was a very humble person and was alway willing to help other mathematicians. The mathematical community will miss him.
I offer my sincere condolences to his wife Bev, to his two sons and to the whole family