Esther Szekeres

Esther Szekeres (born as Esther Klein, Hungarian Eszter Klein ; born February 20, 1910 in Budapest , † August 28, 2005 in Adelaide ) was a Hungarian-Australian mathematician. She was married to George Szekeres and is known for the happy ending theorem from combinatorics .

Esther Szekeres studied physics in Budapest at one of the few places available to women at the time (her friend Marta Sved took the place in mathematics). She belonged to a group of friends of mathematically interested students around Paul Erdős (with whom she published) and Paul Turan , in whom she also met her future husband George Szekeres (married in 1937), who was studying chemistry at the time. One of her conjectures was proven by George Szekeres, and since they both later got married, she was given the name Happy Ending Theorem . It says that among five points in a general position in the plane there are always four points that form a convex square.

The Szekeres fled as Jews from the National Socialists to Shanghai (where their son Peter was born) and later (1948) to Australia. There she lived with her husband from 1964 in Sydney, where he was a professor at the University of New South Wales , and most recently in Adelaide near their children. From 1983 to 2002 she regularly taught mathematically gifted high school students from the Sydney area in special remedial courses.

She taught mathematics for many years at Macquarie University , where she received an honorary doctorate in 1990.

With George Szekeres she had a son and a daughter. George and Esther Szekeres died in quick succession in 2005.

Web links

• Obituary for George and Esther Szekeres in the Sydney Morning Herald 2005