Gabriel Andrew Dirac
Born(1925-03-13)13 March 1925
Budapest
Died20 July 1984(1984-07-20) (aged 59)
Arlesheim
EducationPh.D.
Alma materSt John's College, Cambridge
University of London
Known forGraph theory
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsUniversity of Aarhus, Trinity College Dublin
ThesisOn the Colouring of Graphs: Combinatorial topology of Linear Complexes (1952)
Doctoral advisorRichard Rado

Gabriel Andrew Dirac (13 March 1925 – 20 July 1984) was a Hungarian-British mathematician who mainly worked in graph theory.[1] He served as Erasmus Smith's Professor of Mathematics at Trinity College Dublin from 1964 to 1966.[2] In 1952, he gave a sufficient condition for a graph to contain a Hamiltonian circuit. The previous year, he conjectured that n points in the plane, not all collinear, must span at least two-point lines, where is the largest integer not exceeding . This conjecture was proven true when n is sufficiently large by Green and Tao in 2012.[3]

Education

Dirac started his studies at St John's College, Cambridge in 1942, but in that same year the war saw him serving in the aircraft industry.[1] He received his MA in 1949, and moved to the University of London, getting his Ph.D. "On the Colouring of Graphs: Combinatorial topology of Linear Complexes" there under Richard Rado.[4]

Career

Dirac's main academic positions were at the King's College London (1948-1954), University of Toronto (1952-1953), University of Vienna (1954-1958), University of Hamburg (1958-1963), Trinity College Dublin (Erasmus Smith's Professor of Mathematics, 1964-1966), University of Wales at Swansea (1967-1970), and Aarhus University (1970-1984).[1]

Family

He was born Balázs Gábor in Budapest, to Richárd Balázs, a military officer and businessman, and Margit "Manci" Wigner (sister of Eugene Wigner).[5] When his mother married Paul Dirac in 1937, he and his sister resettled in England and were formally adopted, changing their family name to Dirac.[6] He married Rosemari Dirac and they had four children together: Meike, Barbara, Holger and Annette.[7]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Thomassen, Carsten (1985). "Gabriel Andrew Dirac Obituary". Journal of Graph Theory. 9: 303–318. doi:10.1002/jgt.3190090302. S2CID 28656582. Retrieved 1 May 2021.
  2. ↑ Webb, D.A. (1992). J.R., Barlett (ed.). Trinity College Dublin Record Volume 1991. Dublin: Trinity College Dublin Press. ISBN 1-871408-07-5.
  3. ↑ Green, Ben; Tao, Terence (23 August 2012). "On sets defining few ordinary lines". arXiv:1208.4714 [math.CO].
  4. ↑ Gabriel Andrew Dirac at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  5. ↑ "Magyar Tudomány. 100 ÉVE SZÜLETETT WIGNER JENÕ 400 ÉVE SZÜLETETT OTTO von GUERICKE" (in Hungarian). DocPlayer. Retrieved 29 January 2022.
  6. ↑ O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
  7. ↑ Gabriel Andrew Dirac. Annals of Discrete Mathematics. Vol. 41. Elsevier. 1988. pp. 1–6. doi:10.1016/S0167-5060(08)70444-8. ISBN 9780444871299. Retrieved 16 December 2022.

References

  • L. Døvling Andersen, I. Tafteberg Jakobsen, C. Thomassen, B. Toft, and P. Vestergaard (eds.), Graph Theory in Memory of G.A. Dirac, Annals of Discrete Mathematics, volume 41, North-Holland, 1989. ISBN 0-444-87129-2.
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