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Showing posts from July, 2020

In Memoriam S. S. Shrikhande

Sharadchandra Shankar Shrikhande (19 October 1917 – 21 April 2020) was an Indian mathematician with distinguished and well-recognized achievements in combinatorial mathematics. He was notable for his breakthrough work along with R. C. Bose and E. T. Parker in their disproof of the famous conjecture made by Leonhard Euler dated 1782 that there do not exist two mutually orthogonal latin squares of order 4n + 2 for any n.   Shrikhande's specialty was combinatorics, and statistical designs. Shrikhande graph is used in statistical designs. “His graph is known for the beautiful format it takes,” says Arun Muktibodh, retired Head of the Department of Mathematics at Nagpur's Mohata Science College.   “It’s important to preserve his memory and work for generations,” said Muktibodh, who produced a documentary on him two years ago. The film titled ‘Euler’s Spoiler: A Living Legend’ is archived by the film society of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru. “With some fresh

Combinatorics in the news

The Gödel Prize for outstanding papers in the area of theoretical computer science is sponsored jointly by the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) and the Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM SIGACT). This award is presented annually, with the presentation taking place alternately at the International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP) and the ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC). The 28th Gödel Prize will be awarded at the 47th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming to be held during 8–12 July, 2020 in Beijing. The Prize is named in honour of Kurt Gödel in recognition of his major contributions to mathematical logic and of his interest, discovered in a letter he wrote to John von Neumann shortly before Neumann’s death, in what has become the famous “P versus NP” question. The Prize includes an award of USD 5,000. The 2020 Gödel

In Memoriam Richard Guy

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Picture of Guy by Thane, 2005 Richard Kenneth Guy (30 September 1916 – 9 March 2020) was a British mathematician. He was a professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Calgary. He is known for his work in number theory, geometry, recreational mathematics, combinatorics, and graph theory. He is best known for co-authorship (with John Conway and Elwyn Berlekamp) of Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays and authorship of Unsolved Problems in Number Theory. He published more than 300 scholarly articles. For this paper he received the MAA Lester R. Ford Award. Guy is known for finding the crucial “glider” in John Horton Conway’s Game of Life, a universal cellular automaton that produces rich complexity from a very simple rule set—the glider was a wiggling, skittering animal, of sorts, gliding its way diagonally across the Life board. And Guy contributed to the canon of mathematical folklore with a tongue-in-cheek paper, published in 1988, titled, “The Strong L

Conference Announcement: The 43rd Australasian Combinatorics Conference (43ACC)

The 43rd Australasian Combinatorics Conference (43ACC) will be held at The University of Melbourne, Australia, 14-18 December 2020. Previously known as the Australasian Conference on Combinatorial Mathematics and Combinatorial Computing (ACCMCC), the Australasian Combinatorics Conference (ACC) is the annual conference of the Combinatorial Mathematics Society of Australasia (CMSA). It covers all areas of combinatorics in mathematics and computer science. Researchers in any area of discrete mathematics and its applications are warmly invited to attend 43ACC and give talks. Contributed talks will be around 20 - 25 minutes in length including time for questions. Invited speakers: * Vida Dujmović, University of Ottawa, Canada * Rongquan Feng, Peking University, China * Michael Giudici, The University of Western Australia, Australia * Sarada Herke, The University of Queensland, Australia * Mikhail Isaev, Monash University, Australia * Daniel Kráľ, Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic *

News of Member Cheryl Praeger

The citation of her 2011 Euler Medal may not have been previously posted here: 2011 Euler Medal award to Cheryl Praeger Cheryl Praeger has an extraordinary record of accomplishment and impact that has been recognized by her university, her state, her country, and by mathematical organizations worldwide. Her many contributions have led to numerous invitations and awards, including the Order of Australia. Her research concentrates on finite groups and their actions on graphs, designs, geometries, codes, and linear spaces. At the same time, she has undertaken significant work in algorithms and computation. She has published more than 300 refereed journal papers, and graduated more than 20 PhD students. Her nominators summarize: “Professor Praeger is a prolific researcher who has had, and continues to have, a huge positive impact on combinatorics, algebra, geometry, and their interactions.” More recently, she has been awarded the Australian Prime Minister's Prize for Science: