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

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

Auburn University Auburn University (AU or Auburn) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Auburn, Alabama, United States. With more than 26,800 undergraduate students, over 6,100 post-graduate students, and a tota ...

, with research interests in

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

and

topology Topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is the branch of mathematics concerned with the properties of a Mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformat ...

Biography

Although Kuperberg is

Polish-American Polish Americans () are Americans who either have total or partial Polish ancestry, or are citizens of the Republic of Poland. There are an estimated 8.81 million self-identified Polish Americans, representing about 2.67% of the U.S. population, ...

, he was born in what is now

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

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

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

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

Szczecin Szczecin ( , , ; ; ; or ) is the capital city, capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the Poland-Germany border, German border, it is a major port, seaport, the la ...

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

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw (, ) is a public university, public research university in Warsaw, Poland. Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well ...

in 1959, and received his Ph.D. from the same institution in 1969, under the supervision of

Karol Borsuk Karol Borsuk (8 May 1905 – 24 January 1982) was a Polish mathematician. His main area of interest was topology. He made significant contributions to Shape theory (mathematics), shape theory, a term which he coined. He also obtained important r ...

. 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 A series of major student, intellectual and other protests against the ruling Polish United Workers' Party of the Polish People's Republic took place in Poland in March 1968. The crisis led to the suppression of student strikes by security forces ...

, and worked at

Stockholm University Stockholm University (SU) () is a public university, 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, social ...

until 1972, when he assumed a visiting position at the

University of Houston The University of Houston (; ) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas, United States. It was established in 1927 as Houston Junior College, a coeducational institution and one of multiple junior colleges formed in ...

. In 1974, Kuperberg took a position at Auburn where he remains. Kuperberg married mathematician Krystyna Kuperberg in 1964, and their son Greg Kuperberg 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 a ...

. His first paper in this area (1982) showed that the ratio of

packing density A packing density or packing fraction of a packing in some space is the fraction of the space filled by the figures making up the packing. In simplest terms, this is the ratio of the volume of bodies in a space to the volume of the space itself. ...

to covering density of any convex body in the plane is at least 3/4. His 1990 paper on double lattices 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 The Kepler conjecture, named after the 17th-century mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler, is a mathematical theorem about sphere packing in three-dimensional Euclidean space. It states that no arrangement of equally sized spheres filling s ...

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 ( , MTA) is Hungary’s foremost and most prestigious learned society. Its headquarters are located along the banks of the Danube in Budapest, between Széchenyi rakpart and Akadémia utca. The Academy's primar ...

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

. 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 ...

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 faculty Auburn University faculty Living people 1941 births