Włodzimierz Kuperberg (born January 19, 1941) is a professor of

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

Auburn University Auburn University (AU or Auburn) is a public land-grant research university in Auburn, Alabama. With more than 24,600 undergraduate students and a total enrollment of more than 30,000 with 1,330 faculty members, Auburn is the second largest uni ...

, with research interests in

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

and

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformations, such ...

Biography

Although Kuperberg is

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

, he was born in what is now

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...

, where his parents and older siblings had traveled east to escape

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. In 1946, the family returned to Poland, resettling in

Szczecin Szczecin (, , german: Stettin ; sv, Stettin ; Latin: ''Sedinum'' or ''Stetinum'') is the capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the German border, it is a major s ...

, where Kuperberg grew up. He began his studies at the

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields of ...

in 1959, and received his Ph.D. from the same institution in 1969, under the supervision of Karol Borsuk. During his time at Warsaw, he published three high school textbooks in Polish. Kuperberg left Poland due to the anti-semitic aspects of the 1967-

1968 Polish political crisis The Polish 1968 political crisis, also known in Poland as March 1968, Students' March, or March events ( pl, Marzec 1968; studencki Marzec; wydarzenia marcowe), was a series of major student, intellectual and other protests against the ruling Poli ...

, and worked at

Stockholm University Stockholm University ( sv, Stockholms universitet) is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, so ...

until 1972, when he assumed a visiting position at the

University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...

. In 1974, Kuperberg took a position at Auburn where he remains. Kuperberg married mathematician

Krystyna Kuperberg Krystyna M. Kuperberg (born ''Krystyna M. Trybulec''; 17 July 1944) is a Polish-American mathematician who currently works as a professor of mathematics at Auburn University, where she was formerly an Alumni Professor of Mathematics.Greg Kuperberg Greg Kuperberg (born July 4, 1967) is a Polish-born American mathematician known for his contributions to geometric topology, quantum algebra, and combinatorics. Kuperberg is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Davis.Gre ...

is also a professional mathematician, while their daughter Anna Kuperberg is a photographer.

Research highlights

Although much of Kuperberg's early mathematical work is in

, he is best known today for his work in

, and in particular on packing and

covering problems In combinatorics and computer science, covering problems are computational problems that ask whether a certain combinatorial structure 'covers' another, or how large the structure has to be to do that. Covering problems are minimization problems ...

. His first paper in this area (1982) showed that the ratio of packing density to covering density of any convex body in the plane is at least 3/4. His 1990 paper on

double lattice In mathematics, especially in geometry, a double lattice in is a discrete subgroup of the group of Euclidean motions that consists only of translations and point reflections and such that the subgroup of translations is a lattice. The orbit of an ...

s with his son Greg provides the best lower bound known at that time for packing densities of arbitrary two-dimensional convex bodies; with Bezdek (1990) he calculated the exact packing density of the infinite cylinder, which prior to Hales' 1998 solution of the Kepler conjecture was the first nontrivial calculation of the packing density of any three-dimensional convex body.

Awards and honors

As a high school student, Kuperberg won first prize in the 10th Polish Mathematical Olympiad, leading him to enroll in mathematics when he began his college studies. While at the University of Warsaw he received both the university's Excellence in Teaching and Research Award and the Polish Mathematical Society Award for Young Mathematicians. He was honored again at Auburn by a five-year Alumni Professor chairship in 1996, and again by an Erdős Professorship in 1999, which he used to visit the

Hungarian Academy of Sciences The Hungarian Academy of Sciences ( hu, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, MTA) is the most important and prestigious learned society of Hungary. Its seat is at the bank of the Danube in Budapest, between Széchenyi rakpart and Akadémia utca. Its ma ...

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

. In 2003, his colleagues presented him with a

festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

edited by András Bezdek, consisting of 34 papers in discrete geometry.

References

Selected publications

*. *. *.

External links

Kuperberg's home page at Auburn U.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuperberg, Wlodzimierz Geometers Topologists 20th-century Polish mathematicians 21st-century Polish mathematicians 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians University of Warsaw alumni Polish emigrants to the United States University of Houston staff Auburn University faculty Living people 1941 births