Lajos Takács, professor emeritus of statistics and probability at Case Western Reserve University, died Dec. 4. He was 91.
A private funeral service will be held, with interment at Lake View Cemetery. The family will receive friends at the Schulte & Mahon-Murphy Funeral Home (5252 Mayfield Road, Lyndhurst) Friday, Dec. 11, from 3 to 7 p.m.
Takács was a pioneer in queuing theory and an elected member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He authored more than 200 mathematical publications, including five books.
During his 70-year career, he consulted in the research laboratories at Hungary’s premier telephone, telegraph and technology company, Tungsram. Involved in early experiments to detect microwave echoes, he helped calculate the distance to the moon, and to study the nature of the photon.
In 1959, he became assistant professor of mathematical statistics at Columbia University. He also consulted with Bell Labs and IBM. During his years at Columbia, he published three books: Stochastic Processes, Introduction to the Theory of Queues and Combinatorial Methods in the Theory of Stochastic Processes.
In 1966, he joined the faculty of Case Institute of Technology, now Case Western Reserve University, as a full professor. Nearly three decades of important research followed, resulting in more than 100 published papers and a book, Theory of Random Fluctuations, still in MS form today. His eldest grandson, David Pendergast, is a third-year undergraduate student at CWRU majoring in mathematics and computer science.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions in memory of Takács be made to Case Western Reserve University, Kelvin Smith Library, Attn: J. Mark Wipper, 10900 Euclid Ave. Cleveland, OH 44106.