|
Jon Folkman
Jon Hal Folkman (December 8, 1938 – January 23, 1969) was an American mathematician, a student of John Milnor, and a researcher at the RAND Corporation. Schooling Folkman was a Putnam Fellow in 1960. He received his Ph.D. in 1964 from Princeton University, under the supervision of Milnor, with a thesis entitled ''Equivariant Maps of Spheres into the Classical Groups''. Research Jon Folkman contributed important theorems in many areas of combinatorics. In geometric combinatorics, Folkman is known for his pioneering and posthumously-published studies of oriented matroids; in particular, the Folkman–Lawrence topological representation theorem is "one of the cornerstones of the theory of oriented matroids". In lattice theory, Folkman solved an open problem on the foundations of combinatorics by proving a conjecture of Gian–Carlo Rota; in proving Rota's conjecture, Folkman characterized the structure of the homology groups of "geometric lattices" in terms of the free ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ogden, Utah
Ogden is a city in and the county seat of Weber County, Utah, United States, approximately east of the Great Salt Lake and north of Salt Lake City. The population was 87,321 in 2020, according to the US Census Bureau, making it Utah's eighth largest city. The city served as a major railway hub through much of its history,Maia Armaleo "Grand Junction: Where Two Lines Raced to Drive the Last Spike in Transcontinental Track," ''American Heritage'', June/July 2006. and still handles a great deal of freight rail traffic which makes it a convenient location for and |
Putnam Fellow
The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, often abbreviated to Putnam Competition, is an annual mathematics competition for undergraduate college students enrolled at institutions of higher learning in the United States and Canada (regardless of the students' nationalities). It awards a scholarship and cash prizes ranging from $250 to $2,500 for the top students and $5,000 to $25,000 for the top schools, plus one of the top five individual scorers (designated as ''Putnam Fellows'') is awarded a scholarship of up to $12,000 plus tuition at Harvard University (Putnam Fellow Prize Fellowship), the top 100 individual scorers have their names mentioned in the American Mathematical Monthly (alphabetically ordered within rank), and the names and addresses of the top 500 contestants are mailed to all participating institutions. It is widely considered to be the most prestigious university-level mathematics competition in the world, and its difficulty is such that the median score i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homology (mathematics)
In mathematics, homology is a general way of associating a sequence of algebraic objects, such as abelian groups or modules, with other mathematical objects such as topological spaces. Homology groups were originally defined in algebraic topology. Similar constructions are available in a wide variety of other contexts, such as abstract algebra, groups, Lie algebras, Galois theory, and algebraic geometry. The original motivation for defining homology groups was the observation that two shapes can be distinguished by examining their holes. For instance, a circle is not a disk because the circle has a hole through it while the disk is solid, and the ordinary sphere is not a circle because the sphere encloses a two-dimensional hole while the circle encloses a one-dimensional hole. However, because a hole is "not there", it is not immediately obvious how to define a hole or how to distinguish different kinds of holes. Homology was originally a rigorous mathematical method for defi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gian-Carlo Rota
Gian-Carlo Rota (April 27, 1932 – April 18, 1999) was an Italian-American mathematician and philosopher. He spent most of his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked in combinatorics, functional analysis, probability theory, and phenomenology. Early life and education Rota was born in Vigevano, Italy. His father, Giovanni, an architect and prominent antifascist, was the brother of the mathematician Rosetta, who was the wife of the writer Ennio Flaiano. Gian-Carlo's family left Italy when he was 13 years old, initially going to Switzerland. Rota attended the Colegio Americano de Quito in Ecuador, and graduated with an A.B. in mathematics from Princeton University in 1953 after completing a senior thesis, titled "On the solubility of linear equations in topological vector spaces", under the supervision of William Feller. He then pursued graduate studies at Yale University, where he received a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1956 after completing a do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conjecture
In mathematics, a conjecture is a conclusion or a proposition that is proffered on a tentative basis without proof. Some conjectures, such as the Riemann hypothesis (still a conjecture) or Fermat's Last Theorem (a conjecture until proven in 1995 by Andrew Wiles), have shaped much of mathematical history as new areas of mathematics are developed in order to prove them. Important examples Fermat's Last Theorem In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three positive integers a, ''b'', and ''c'' can satisfy the equation ''a^n + b^n = c^n'' for any integer value of ''n'' greater than two. This theorem was first conjectured by Pierre de Fermat in 1637 in the margin of a copy of '' Arithmetica'', where he claimed that he had a proof that was too large to fit in the margin. The first successful proof was released in 1994 by Andrew Wiles, and formally published in 1995, after 358 years of effort by mathe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enumerative Combinatorics
Enumerative combinatorics is an area of combinatorics that deals with the number of ways that certain patterns can be formed. Two examples of this type of problem are counting combinations and counting permutations. More generally, given an infinite collection of finite sets ''S''''i'' indexed by the natural numbers, enumerative combinatorics seeks to describe a ''counting function'' which counts the number of objects in ''S''''n'' for each ''n''. Although counting the number of elements in a set is a rather broad mathematical problem, many of the problems that arise in applications have a relatively simple combinatorial description. The twelvefold way provides a unified framework for counting permutations, combinations and partitions. The simplest such functions are ''closed formulas'', which can be expressed as a composition of elementary functions such as factorials, powers, and so on. For instance, as shown below, the number of different possible orderings of a deck of '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open Problem
In science and mathematics, an open problem or an open question is a known problem which can be accurately stated, and which is assumed to have an objective and verifiable solution, but which has not yet been solved (i.e., no solution for it is known). In the history of science, some of these supposed open problems were "solved" by means of showing that they were not well-defined. In mathematics, many open problems are concerned with the question of whether a certain definition is or is not consistent. Two notable examples in mathematics that have been solved and ''closed'' by researchers in the late twentieth century are Fermat's Last Theorem and the four-color theorem.K. Appel and W. Haken (1977), "Every planar map is four colorable. Part I. Discharging", ''Illinois J. Math'' 21: 429–490. K. Appel, W. Haken, and J. Koch (1977), "Every planar map is four colorable. Part II. Reducibility", ''Illinois J. Math'' 21: 491–567. An important open mathematics problem solved i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Journal Of Combinatorial Theory
The ''Journal of Combinatorial Theory'', Series A and Series B, are mathematical journals specializing in combinatorics and related areas. They are published by Elsevier. ''Series A'' is concerned primarily with structures, designs, and applications of combinatorics. ''Series B'' is concerned primarily with graph and matroid theory. The two series are two of the leading journals in the field and are widely known as ''JCTA'' and ''JCTB''. The journal was founded in 1966 by Frank Harary and Gian-Carlo Rota.They are acknowledged on the journals' title pages and Web sites. SeEditorial board of JCTA Originally there was only one journal, which was split into two parts in 1971 as the field grew rapidly. An electronic, [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Folkman–Lawrence Topological Representation Theorem
An oriented matroid is a mathematical structure that abstracts the properties of directed graphs, vector arrangements over ordered fields, and hyperplane arrangements over ordered fields. In comparison, an ordinary (i.e., non-oriented) matroid abstracts the dependence properties that are common both to graphs, which are not necessarily ''directed'', and to arrangements of vectors over fields, which are not necessarily ''ordered''. All oriented matroids have an underlying matroid. Thus, results on ordinary matroids can be applied to oriented matroids. However, the converse is false; some matroids cannot become an oriented matroid by ''orienting'' an underlying structure (e.g., circuits or independent sets). The distinction between matroids and oriented matroids is discussed further below. Matroids are often useful in areas such as dimension theory and algorithms. Because of an oriented matroid's inclusion of additional details about the ''oriented'' nature of a structure, its us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oriented Matroid
An oriented matroid is a mathematics, mathematical mathematical structure, structure that abstracts the properties of directed graphs, Vector space, vector arrangements over ordered fields, and Arrangement of hyperplanes, hyperplane arrangements over ordered fields. In comparison, an ordinary (i.e., non-oriented) matroid abstracts the linear independence, dependence properties that are common both to Graph (discrete mathematics), graphs, which are not necessarily ''directed'', and to arrangements of vectors over field (mathematics), fields, which are not necessarily ''ordered''. All oriented matroids have an underlying matroid. Thus, results on ordinary matroids can be applied to oriented matroids. However, the conversion (logic), converse is false; some matroids cannot become an oriented matroid by ''orienting'' an underlying structure (e.g., circuits or independent sets). The distinction between matroids and oriented matroids is discussed further below. Matroids are often usefu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geometric Combinatorics
Geometric combinatorics is a branch of mathematics in general and combinatorics in particular. It includes a number of subareas such as polyhedral combinatorics (the study of faces of convex polyhedra), convex geometry (the study of convex sets, in particular combinatorics of their intersections), and discrete geometry, which in turn has many applications to computational geometry. Other important areas include metric geometry of polyhedra, such as the Cauchy theorem on rigidity of convex polytopes. The study of regular polytopes, Archimedean solids, and kissing numbers is also a part of geometric combinatorics. Special polytopes are also considered, such as the permutohedron, associahedron and Birkhoff polytope. See also *Topological combinatorics The mathematical discipline of topological combinatorics is the application of topological and algebro-topological methods to solving problems in combinatorics. History The discipline of combinatorial topology used combinatorial c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
