Percy Heawood
Percy John Heawood (born September 8, 1861 in Newport , Shropshire , † January 24, 1955 in Durham ) was a British mathematician .
Live and act
Heawood studied from 1880 at Exeter College in Oxford a . a. with Henry John Stephen Smith . During his studies he won several awards and scholarships and was Wrangler in the Tripos exams.
From 1887 until his retirement in 1939 Percy Heawood worked at Durham University , first as a lecturer and from 1911 as a professor. From 1926 to 1928 he was Vice Chancellor of the university.
He had been married since 1890 and had two children.
Heawood studied the four-color theorem and found a mistake in Alfred Kempe's proof of 1879 in 1890. He then proved the five-color theorem instead . He also dealt with the question of the coloring of maps on surfaces of the higher sex and proved an upper limit for the minimum number of colors required. Heawood suspected, however, that the formula he found not only yields an upper bound, but also determines the minimum number exactly ( Heawood conjecture ). Gerhard Ringel and JWT Youngs proved in 1968 that this assumption was indeed correct, with one exception ( Kleinsche bottle ). The Heawood conjecture has since been called the Ringel Youngs theorem . This minimum number of colors required for a certain area is also known as its Heawood number .
The Heawood graph is also named after Heawood .
Web links
- John J. O'Connor, Edmund F. Robertson : Percy Heawood. In: MacTutor History of Mathematics archive .
- Obituary from The Times
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Heawood, Percy |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Heawood, Percy John (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British mathematician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 8, 1861 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Newport , Shropshire , England , United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 24, 1955 |
| Place of death | Durham , England , UK |