Gabriel Sudan (April 14, 1899 – June 22, 1977) was a Romanian mathematician, known for the Sudan function, an important example in the theory of computation, similar to the Ackermann function.

Born in Bucharest, Sudan received his Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen in 1925 for his thesis Über die geordneten Mengen ("On the theory of ordered sets"), supervised by David Hilbert. He taught at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest from 1941 until his retirement, in 1966.

Gabriel Sudan

Sudan constructed the function that bears his name with the same aim as Wilhelm Ackermann: to solve in the affirmative a problem raised by Hilbert. The Ackermann and Sudan functions are chronologically the first examples of recursive functions which are not primitive recursive.

Gabriel Sudan

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Bibliography

1899 births

1977 deaths

Scientists from Bucharest

University of Göttingen alumni

20th-century Romanian mathematicians

Academic staff of the Politehnica University of Bucharest

Members of the Romanian Academy of Sciences

Gabriel Sudan