Mark Kac

Mark Kac ( ; Polish: ''Marek Kac''; August 3, 1914 – October 26, 1984) was a Polish-American mathematician. His main interest was probability theory. His question, "Can one hear the shape of a drum?" set off research into spectral geometry, the idea of understanding the extent to which the spectrum allows one to read back the geometry. In the end, the answer was generally "No," although certain shapes, such as a circular drum, can be inferred from the spectrum of the Laplacian. Provided by Wikipedia