Herbert Busemann; USC Emeritus Professor of Mathematics

Herbert Busemann, 88, emeritus professor of mathematics at USC honored by the Soviet Union and many others for his solutions to geometric problems. In 1985, Busemann received the Lobachevsky Prize for his innovative book, “The Geometry of Geodesics,” published in 1955. He was the first American honored with the Soviet prize, named for the Russian geometrician and awarded every four years. Busemann earned his doctorate degree from the University of Goettingen in 1931 and fled Germany with other scientists, artists and intellectuals in the early years of the Third Reich. He taught at several U.S. colleges and universities--Swarthmore, Johns Hopkins and the Illinois Institute of Technology among them--before joining the faculty at USC in 1947. He retired in 1970 and was awarded emeritus status. In Santa Ynez, Calif., on Feb. 3.