Bruce Lee Rothschild (born August 26, 1941) is an American mathematician and educator, specializing in

combinatorial mathematics Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and an end in obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many a ...

. He is a professor emeritus of mathematics at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...

Early life and education

Rothschild was born in 1941 in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. He earned a Ph.D. from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

in 1967 under the supervision of Øystein Ore.

Career

Rothschild, together with

Ronald Graham Ronald Lewis Graham (October 31, 1935July 6, 2020) was an American mathematician credited by the American Mathematical Society as "one of the principal architects of the rapid development worldwide of discrete mathematics in recent years". He ...

, formulated one of the most monumental results in

Ramsey theory Ramsey theory, named after the British mathematician and philosopher Frank P. Ramsey, is a branch of mathematics that focuses on the appearance of order in a substructure given a structure of a known size. Problems in Ramsey theory typically ask ...

, the

Graham–Rothschild theorem In mathematics, the Graham–Rothschild theorem is a theorem that applies Ramsey theory to combinatorics on words and combinatorial cubes. It is named after Ronald Graham and Bruce Lee Rothschild, who published its proof in 1971. Through the work o ...

. He has collaborated with American mathematicians

Joel Spencer Joel Spencer (born April 20, 1946) is an American mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, da ...

and

on key texts related to Ramsey theory. Rothschild wrote several papers with Paul Erdős, giving him an

Erdős number The Erdős number () describes the "collaborative distance" between mathematician Paul Erdős and another person, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers. The same principle has been applied in other fields where a particular individual ...

of 1.

Awards and honors

In 1971, Rothschild shared the

Pólya Prize (SIAM) Pólya Prize may refer to: * George Pólya Prize, awarded by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) *Pólya Prize (LMS) The Pólya Prize is a prize in mathematics, awarded by the London Mathematical Society. Second only to th ...

with four other mathematicians for his work on

. In 2012, he became a fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rothschild, Bruce Lee Combinatorialists 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians University of California, Los Angeles faculty Yale University alumni Living people 1941 births Fellows of the American Mathematical Society