Theodorus Jozef Dekker (Dirk Dekker, 1 March 1927 - 25 November 2021) was a Dutch

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 ...

. Dekker completed his

Ph.D A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

. degree from the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

in 1958. His thesis was titled "Paradoxical Decompositions of Sets and Spaces". Dekker invented an algorithm that allows two processes to share a single-use resource without conflict, using only

shared memory In computer science, shared memory is memory that may be simultaneously accessed by multiple programs with an intent to provide communication among them or avoid redundant copies. Shared memory is an efficient means of passing data between progr ...

for communication, named

Dekker's algorithm Dekker's algorithm is the first known correct solution to the mutual exclusion problem in concurrent programming where processes only communicate via shared memory. The solution is attributed to Dutch mathematician Th. J. Dekker by Edsger W. Dijks ...

References

Prof. dr. T.J. Dekker, 1927 -
at the

''Album Academicum'' website

External links

The Mathematics Genealogy Project entry for T. J. Dekker
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dekker, Theodorus 1927 births 2021 deaths Dutch mathematicians University of Amsterdam alumni Academic staff of the University of Amsterdam People from Heerhugowaard