The Life of Cahit Arf

Cahit Arf ( 1910 – 1997 ) was best known as a mathematician who came up with the “Arf invariant of a quadratic form”. However, he was more than the mathematical problems that he inevitably solved. He was thought of as the greatest Turkish mathematician of the 20th century.

Arf Cahit was born in 1910 in the Selanik part of the Ottoman Empire. His family eventually had to move when the Balkan War of 1912 forced them to consider Istanbul as their home. Cahit would be educated in Izmir where he would go on to receive a scholarship from the Turkish Ministry of Education.

Arf Cahit was a mathematical genius. He was able to study in Paris before returning to Turkey where he taught mathematics at the elite Galatasaray Lisesi. An honor few experience, Arf Cahit would remain there briefly before joining the math program at Istanbul University in 1933.

In 1937, Arf Cahit went to the University of Gottingen where he would be able to secure his Ph.D. He later broadened his horizons by going to the states to work diligently from 1964 until 1966 at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

Arf Cahit spent a year at Berkeley following his research in Princeton. After he returned to Turkey, he continued to work in research. His continued dedication to mathematics would be profoundly noticed when he joined the Middle East Technical University where he remained until he reached his retirement in 1980.He died on 1997.