Peter C. Fishburn

Peter Clingerman Fishburn (September 2, 1936 – June 10, 2021) was an American mathematician, known as a pioneer in the field of decision theory. In collaboration with Steven Brams, Fishburn published a paper about approval voting in 1978.^[1]

Peter C. Fishburn
Born	(1936-09-02)2 September 1936 Philipsburg, Pennsylvania
Died	10 June 2021(2021-06-10) (aged 84) Racine, Wisconsin
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Pennsylvania State University (M.S.) Case Institute of Technology (Ph. D)
Known for	Decision Theory
Awards	John von Neumann Theory Prize (1996) Decision Analysis Publication Award Frank P. Ramsey Medal
Scientific career
Fields	Decision Theory
Institutions	AT&T Bell Laboratories
Thesis	A Normative Theory of Decisions under Risk  (1962)
Doctoral advisor	Russell Ackoff

Biography

Intellectual

Fishburn received his B.S. in industrial engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1958, his M.S. in operations research in 1961, and a Ph.D. in operations research in 1962, the latter two from the Case Institute of Technology.

In collaboration with Steven Brams, Fishburn published a paper about approval voting in 1978.^[1] In 1996, he won the John von Neumann Theory Prize. He also won the Decision Analysis Publication Award in 1991^[2] and the Frank P. Ramsey Medal in 1987.^[3]

He was elected to the 2002 class of Fellows of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.^[4]

Personal

Fishburn retired after many years of research at AT&T Bell Laboratories in the state of New Jersey, United States. He was married to the theologian Janet Forsythe Fishburn. He died on June 10, 2021, in Racine, Wisconsin.^[5]

See also

• Fishburn set
• Fishburn–Shepp inequality
• Maximal lotteries

References

• Brams, Steven J., and Fishburn, Peter C. (1983), Approval Voting. Boston: Birkhäuser. Second edition (2007). New York: Springer.
• Fishburn, P.C. (1964), Decision and Value Theory. Publications in Operations Research, No. 10. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
• Fishburn, P.C. (1970), Utility Theory for Decision Making. Publications in Operations Research, No. 18. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
• Fishburn, Peter C. (1972), Mathematics of Decision Theory. Methods and Models in the Social Sciences, 3. The Hague: Mouton.
• Fishburn, Peter C. (1973), The Theory of Social Choice. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press.
• Fishburn, Peter C. (1982), The Foundations of Expected Utility. Theory and Decision Library, Vol. 31. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
• Fishburn, Peter C. (1985). Interval Orders and Interval Graphs: A Study of Partially Ordered Sets. Wiley-Interscience Series in Discrete Mathematics. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
• Fishburn, Peter C. (1988), Nonlinear Preference and Utility Theory. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.