Robert Palmer Dilworth (December 2, 1914 – October 29, 1993) was 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, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

. His primary research area was

lattice theory A lattice is an abstract structure studied in the mathematical subdisciplines of order theory and abstract algebra. It consists of a partially ordered set in which every pair of elements has a unique supremum (also called a least upper boun ...

; his biography at the

MacTutor History of Mathematics archive The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive is a website maintained by John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson and hosted by the University of St Andrews in Scotland. It contains detailed biographies on many historical and contemporary mathemati ...

states "it would not be an exaggeration to say that he was one of the main factors in the subject moving from being merely a tool of other disciplines to an important subject in its own right". He is best known for

Dilworth's theorem In mathematics, in the areas of order theory and combinatorics, Dilworth's theorem characterizes the width of any finite partially ordered set in terms of a partition of the order into a minimum number of chains. It is named for the mathematician . ...

relating

chains A chain is a serial assembly of connected pieces, called links, typically made of metal, with an overall character similar to that of a rope in that it is flexible and curved in compression but linear, rigid, and load-bearing in tension. A c ...

and antichains in

partial order In mathematics, especially order theory, a partially ordered set (also poset) formalizes and generalizes the intuitive concept of an ordering, sequencing, or arrangement of the elements of a set. A poset consists of a set together with a binary ...

s; he was also the first to study

antimatroid In mathematics, an antimatroid is a formal system that describes processes in which a set is built up by including elements one at a time, and in which an element, once available for inclusion, remains available until it is included. Antimatroids ...

s . Dilworth was born in 1914 in

Hemet, California Hemet is a city in the San Jacinto Valley in Riverside County, California. It covers a total area of , about half of the valley, which it shares with the neighboring city of San Jacinto. The population was 89,833 at the 2020 census. The foundin ...

, at that time a remote desert ranching town. He went to college at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

, receiving his baccalaureate in 1936 and continuing there for his graduate studies. Dilworth's graduate advisor was

Morgan Ward Henry Morgan Ward"New York, New York City Births, 1846-1909," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2WWG-V9Y : 11 February 2018), Henry Morgan Ward, 20 Aug 1901; citing Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, referen ...

, a student of

Eric Temple Bell Eric Temple Bell (7 February 1883 – 21 December 1960) was a Scottish-born mathematician and science fiction writer who lived in the United States for most of his life. He published non-fiction using his given name and fiction as John Tai ...

, who was also on the Caltech faculty at the time. On receiving his Ph.D. in 1939, Dilworth took an instructorship at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. While at Yale, he met and married his wife, Miriam White, with whom he eventually had two sons. He returned to Caltech as a faculty member in 1943, and spent the remainder of his academic career there. Dilworth advised 17 Ph.D. students and has 635 academic descendants listed at the

Mathematics Genealogy Project The Mathematics Genealogy Project (MGP) is a web-based database for the academic genealogy of mathematicians.. By 31 December 2021, it contained information on 274,575 mathematical scientists who contributed to research-level mathematics. For a ty ...

, many through his student

Juris Hartmanis Juris Hartmanis (July 5, 1928 – July 29, 2022) was a Latvian-born American computer scientist and computational theorist who, with Richard E. Stearns, received the 1993 ACM Turing Award "in recognition of their seminal paper which establis ...

, a noted complexity theorist. Other notable mathematicians advised by Dilworth include

Curtis Greene Curtis Greene is an American mathematician, specializing in algebraic combinatorics. He is the J. McLain King Professor of Mathematics at Haverford College in Pennsylvania.Alfred W. Hales Alfred Washington Hales (born November 30, 1938) is an American mathematician, a professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles, and one of the namesakes of the Hales–Jewett theorem. He was born in Pasadena, Califo ...

Selected bibliography

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References and external links

*. * *. {{DEFAULTSORT:Dilworth, Robert P. 20th-century American mathematicians Lattice theorists 1914 births 1993 deaths California Institute of Technology alumni California Institute of Technology faculty Yale University faculty People from Hemet, California Mathematicians from California