Caltech professor won math prize

Herbert B. Keller, 82, a professor emeritus of applied mathematics at Caltech who was known for his work in numerical analysis and large-scale scientific computing, died Jan. 26, the university announced. His family said he drowned in the hot tub at his Pasadena home.

Keller joined the Caltech faculty in 1967, after spending 16 years as a research scientist and professor at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. At Caltech he became an executive officer for applied mathematics and director of the school’s branch of the Center for Research on Parallel Computation.

In 1994 he was awarded the Theodore von Karman Prize of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics for the advances he made in numerical methods for solving important problems in mechanics.

Caltech honored Keller a year later for his innovative techniques to solve two-point boundary-value problems used in fluid mechanics, quantum physics and electromagnetism.

Keller also wrote with Eugene Isaacson “Analysis of Numerical Methods,” which became a classic textbook in the field.

Born June 19, 1925, in Paterson, N.J., Keller earned a bachelor’s degree in electronics from Georgia Tech in 1945. He earned his master’s and doctorate in mathematics from NYU.

He retired in 2000.