George Szekeres
George Szekeres | |
|---|---|
Technical University of Budapest | |
| Known for | Szekeres snark Kruskal–Szekeres coordinates Erdős–Szekeres theorem |
| Spouse | Esther Szekeres |
| Children | Peter · Judy |
| Awards | Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal (1968) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematician |
| Institutions | University of Adelaide University of New South Wales |
| Doctoral students | Alfred van der Poorten |
George Szekeres
FAA (Hungarian: [ˈsɛkɛrɛʃ]
; 29 May 1911 – 28 August 2005) was a Hungarian–Australian mathematician.
Early years
Szekeres was born in
Jewish, the family had to escape from the Nazi
persecution so Szekeres took a job in Shanghai, China. There they lived through World War II, the Japanese occupation and the beginnings of the Communist revolution.
Career
In 1948, he was offered a position at the
Sydney University
Mathematics Society.
Szekeres worked closely with many prominent mathematicians throughout his life, including
John Coates
.
Honours
- In 1968 he was the winner of the Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal of the Australian Academy of Science.
- In May 2001, a festschrift was held in honour of his ninetieth birthday at the University of New South Wales.
- In January 2001 he was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal "for service to Australian society and science in pure mathematics".[2]
- In 2001, the Australian Mathematical Society created the George Szekeres Medal in his honour.
- In June 2002, he was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) 'for service to mathematics and science, particularly as a contributor to education and research, to the support and development of the University of New South Wales Mathematics Competition and the Australian Mathematical Olympiad Team.'[3]
Personal life
The so-called
Esther Klein
proposed the following problem:
- Given five points in the plane in general position, prove that four of them form a convex quadrilateral.
After allowing George,
combinatorial geometry
. Erdős dubbed the original problem the "Happy Ending" problem because it resulted in George and Esther's marriage in 1937.
George and Esther died within an hour of each other on 28 August 2005 in Adelaide, South Australia.[1]
See also
- Powerful number
- Szekeres snark
- Generalized continued fraction
- Kruskal–Szekeres coordinates
- Szekeres–Wilf number
- Schröder's equation
- Erdős–Szekeres theorem
Notes
- ^ a b Obituary, The Sydney Morning Herald
- ^ "Centenary Medal". It's an Honour. Canberra: Honours and Awards Branch, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. 1 January 2001. Retrieved 20 June 2010.
- ^ "Member of the Order of Australia". It's an Honour. Canberra: Honours and Awards Branch, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. 10 June 2002. Retrieved 20 June 2010.
- ^ "Ivars Peterson's MathTrek -Planes of Budapest". Archived from the original on 21 January 2001.
References
- Giles, J. R., Wallis, J. S., "George Szekeres. With affection and respect", Journal of the Australian Mathematical Society, Series A, Vol 21 (1976), No 4, pp. 385–392.
- Cowling, M., "Obituary George and Esther Szekeres", Gazette of the Australian Mathematical Society, Vol 32 (2005), No 4, pp. 221–224.
- Erdős, Paul; Szekeres, George (1935). "A combinatorial problem in geometry". Compositio Mathematica. 2: 463–470.
External links
| International | |
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| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
