Answer by Steven Landsburg for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and...
Frank Ramsey wrote two papers in economics --- one on optimal taxation and one on optimal savings --- that remain the foundation of both much theoretical work and of much practical policy-making. His...
View ArticleAnswer by Roland Bacher for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and...
Not sure whether this counts: Martin Hairer has developed a musical soft-ware (Amadeus) which is still used, it seems.
View ArticleAnswer by Jim Conant for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and “very...
William Tutte. He is well known for his contributions to graph and matroid theory, including pioneering the enumeration of planar graphs, and introducing the so called Tutte polynomial. He is less well...
View ArticleAnswer by Xi Li for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and “very...
The big bird Yuri ManinManin is known for his work in algebraic geometry.He is also father of quantum computing together with Richard Feynman.
View ArticleAnswer by Kenneth Derus for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and...
Georg Kreisel did hydrodynamics during and after WWII. Among other things, he determined that the floating harbors used in the D-Day invasion would be stable in heavy seas.
View ArticleAnswer by Hollis Williams for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and...
A similar story to that of Leray is David Gilbarg. He originally did his PhD on algebraic number theory with Emil Artin, but then switched to more applied topics because of the Second World War,...
View ArticleAnswer by Michael Bächtold for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and...
Misha Gromov has written on the formalization of genetic and biomolecular structures and the thinking process. Some articles from his website:Mathematical slices of molecular biologyFunctional labels...
View ArticleAnswer by Timothy Chow for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and “very...
I am slightly surprised that Henri Poincaré is not already on this list. Perhaps it is because almost all of his work could be considered applied mathematics. But his contributions to the foundations...
View ArticleAnswer by Francois Ziegler for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and...
Mikhail L. Zeitlin, or Gel’fand-Zeitlin basis fame (1950), later switched to “game theory, the theory of automata, computer science, physiology, and mathematical methods of biology”.
View ArticleAnswer by Andreas Blass for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and...
Dana Scott's achievements include work in pure set theory and also work in computer science. He proved that there are no measurable cardinals in Gödel's constructible universe and (with Solovay)...
View ArticleAnswer by Francois Ziegler for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and...
Just came across a page of 25+ of Mark Goresky’s Engineering publications.
View ArticleAnswer by David Roberts for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and...
Surprisingly to me, Garrett Birkhoff also did some very applied mathematics (Wikipedia says "During and after World War II, Birkhoff's interests gravitated towards what he called "engineering"...
View ArticleAnswer by Zhipu 'Wilson' Zhao for Mathematicians with both “very abstract”...
Eugene Dynkin, of probability (Dynkin’s Lemma, among many other things) and Lie algebra (Dynkin Diagrams, in fact according to Wikipedia the whole positive root formalism is worked or by him) fame.
View ArticleAnswer by Dan Fox for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and “very...
Raoul Bott. The Bott-Duffin theorem, which is essentially the result of Bott's doctoral thesis (in electrical engineering; the director was Richard Duffin), gives a constructive proof that a...
View ArticleAnswer by Martin Peters for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and...
There is Ernst Zermelo, who is well-known for his work in logic, but who was also a pioneer in optimisation and what is now called control theory.
View ArticleAnswer by Dev Sinha for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and “very...
Gunnar CarlssonIn pure math, he works in homotopy theory, having resolved the Segal Conjecture, as well as in manifold topology, with cases of Borel and Novikov conjectures, and also in algebraic...
View ArticleAnswer by David White for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and “very...
Dan Quillen.Abstract achievements: his Fields Medal winning work on algebraic $K$-theory, plus inventing model categories, homotopical algebra, and an axiomatic approach to abstract homotopy...
View ArticleAnswer by David White for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and “very...
Alexander GrothendieckAbstract achievements: his Fields Medal winning work on derived functors, plus a whole new approach to algebraic geometry that has shaped generations of mathematicians after (see...
View ArticleAnswer by John D. Cook for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and “very...
Richard Arenstorf worked in number theory and in orbital mechanics. He is best remembered for the Arenstorf orbit used by the Apollo program.His pure and applied work weren’t that far apart. Both...
View ArticleAnswer by Gerry Myerson for Mathematicians with both “very abstract” and...
John McCleary will give a talk at the JMM in a couple of weeks on "Hassler Whitney and Fire Control in WWII." Whitney "was assigned to work on fire control, the mathematics of aiming weapons for...
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