Mathematician, Oscar Zariski, Dead At 86

Oscar Zariski, Robinson professor of mathematics emeritus, a leader in algebraic geometry, died July 4, in his home in Brookline. He was 86.

Born in Kobrin in the Soviet Union, Zariski studied at the University of Kiev and then at the University of Rome, where he received his doctorate in mathematics. He came to this country in 1927 and became an American citizen in 1937.

Before joining the Harvard faculty in 1947, he taught at Johns Hopkins University for 18 years and at the University of Illinois for a year and a half. He was named to the Robinson professorship in 1961 after serving as chairman of the Mathematics Department from 1958 to 1960.

Zariski spent his life applying the principles of modern algebra to the study of algebraic geometry, which enables mathematicians to describe the properties of a set of points in any number of dimensions with algebraic equations.

He said that mathematicians before 1900 used intuitive methods to prove theorems in algebraic geometry. Zariski said he found in his studies that "the edifice of algebraic geometry was shaky in its foundations," and that he set out to "rebuild the foundations of the field."

He was awarded the Cole Prize of the American Mathematics Society in 1944, and in 1965 received the National Medal of Science from President Lyndon Johnson. He was awarded honorary degrees from Holy Cross in 1959, Brandeis in 1965, and Purdue in 1974. In 1981, he received an honorary degree from Harvard and in the same year, received the Wolf Prize from the Wolf Foundation in Israel.

He is survived by his wife Yole E. Zariski, a daughter, Vera L. De Cola of Brookline and a son, Raphael Zariski, of Lincoln, Nebraska, and four grandchildren.