Portrait of Stephen Smale

Birthday profile

Stephen Smale

Stephen Smale, American mathematician and computer scientist

Born
July 15, 1930
Age in 2026
96
Zodiac sign
Cancer
Birth year
1930

About Stephen Smale

Stephen Smale is an American mathematician, known for his research in topology, dynamical systems and mathematical economics. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1966 and spent more than three decades on the mathematics faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he currently is Professor Emeritus, with research interests in algorithms, numerical analysis and global analysis. Yet again, Smale performed poorly in his first years, earning a C average as a graduate student. Smale is also known for injecting Morse theory into mathematical economics, as well as recent explorations of various theories of computation. From 2003 to 2012, Smale was a professor at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago; starting August 1, 2009, he became a Distinguished University Professor at the City University of Hong Kong.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Stephen Smale timeline

  1. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1966 and spent more than three decades on the mathematics faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he currently is Professor Emeritus, with research interests in algorithms, numerical analysis and global analysis.
  2. From 2003 to 2012, Smale was a professor at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago; starting August 1, 2009, he became a Distinguished University Professor at the City University of Hong Kong.

The world when Stephen Smale was born

Stephen Smale was born in 1930. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1930

  • #1 song"Georgia on My Mind" – Hoagy Carmichael
  • Top movieAll Quiet on the Western Front
  • Best-selling bookCimarron – Edna Ferber

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentBobby Jones wins the Grand Slam of golf
  • Top headlineFirst FIFA World Cup held in Uruguay
  • Technology milestonePlanet Pluto discovered
  • Defining fadMiniature golf craze
  • Notable inventionScotch tape
  • World population2.07 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderHerbert Hoover
  • Sports championPhiladelphia Athletics (World Series)
  • U.S. population123.2M

1930 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Stephen Smale's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19302026
Gas$0.20$3.45/gal
Average home$6,000$435,000
Average income$3,500$67,500
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population123.2M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.