Jiří Matoušek (mathematician)

Jiri Matousek.
Jiří Matoušek at the Mathematical Research Institute of Oberwolfach, 2005
Born	10 March 1963
Died	9 March 2015 (aged 51)
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	Charles University in Prague

Jiří (Jirka) Matoušek (10 March 1963 – 9 March 2015) was a Czech mathematician working in computational geometry and algebraic topology. He was a professor at Charles University in Prague and the author of several textbooks and research monographs.

Matoušek was born in Prague. In 1986, he received his Master's degree at Charles University under Miroslav Katětov.^[1] From 1986 until his death he was employed at the Department of Applied Mathematics of Charles University in Prague, holding a professor position since 2000. He was also a visiting and later full professor at ETH Zurich.^[2]

In 1996, he won the European Mathematical Society prize^[3] and in 2000 he won the Scientist award of the Learned Society of the Czech Republic.^[4] He became a fellow of the Learned Society of the Czech Republic in 2005.^[5]

Matoušek's paper on computational aspects of algebraic topology won the Best Paper award at the 2012 ACM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms.^[6]

Aside from his own academic writing, he has translated the popularization book Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction by Timothy Gowers into Czech.^[7]

He was a supporter and signatory of the Cost of Knowledge protest.^[8] He died in 2015, aged 51.^[2][9]

Books

• Invitation to Discrete Mathematics (with Jaroslav Nešetřil). Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 978-0-19-850207-4. Translated into French by Delphine Hachez as Introduction Aux Mathématiques Discrètes, Springer-Verlag, 2004, ISBN 978-2-287-20010-6.
• Geometric Discrepancy: An Illustrated Guide. Springer-Verlag, Algorithms and Combinatorics 18, 1999, ISBN 978-3-540-65528-2.^[10]
• Lectures on Discrete Geometry. Springer-Verlag, Graduate Texts in Mathematics, 2002, ISBN 978-0-387-95373-1.^[11][12][13]
• Using the Borsuk-Ulam Theorem: Lectures on Topological Methods in Combinatorics and Geometry. Springer-Verlag, 2003. ISBN 978-3-540-00362-5.^[14][15]
• Topics in Discrete Mathematics: Dedicated to Jarik Nešetřil on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday (with Martin Klazar, Jan Kratochvíl, Martin Loebl, and Robin Thomas). Springer-Verlag, 2006. ISBN 978-3-540-33698-3.
• Understanding and Using Linear Programming (with B. Gärtner). Springer-Verlag, Universitext, 2007, ISBN 978-3-540-30697-9.^[16]
• Thirty-three miniatures — Mathematical and algorithmic applications of linear algebra. AMS, 2010, ISBN 978-0-8218-4977-4.^[17][18][19]
• Approximation Algorithms and Semidefinite Programming (with B. Gärtner). Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2012, ISBN 978-3-642-22014-2.^[20]
• Mathematics++: Selected Topics Beyond the Basic Courses (with Ida Kantor and Robert Šámal). American Mathematical Society, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4704-2261-5.

See also

• Ham sandwich theorem
• Discrepancy theory
• Kneser graph

References

1. Matoušek, Jiří (1986). Vlastnosti R-stromů (M.Sc. thesis) (in Czech). Charles University in Prague.
2. Jan Kratochvíl, Martin Loebl, Jarik Nešetřil, Pavel Valtr. "Prof. Jiří Matoušek". Retrieved 2015-03-18. In the name of Jiří Matoušek's colleagues and friends from Charles University, obituary
3. EMS Prize Winners.
4. 2000 Awards, Learned Society of the Czech Republic.
5. Member profile, Learned Society of the Czech Republic, retrieved 2015-03-10.
6. "SIAM: Best Paper Awards". Retrieved 18 March 2015.
7. Gowers, Timothy (2006). Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction [Matematika: Průvodce pro každého] (in Czech). Translated by Jiří Matoušek. Dokořán. ISBN 80-7363-083-4.
8. "The Cost Of Knowledge". Retrieved 18 March 2015. I've been practicing this for many years, with some exceptions (journals with few good alternatives, requests for reports from people I didn't want to disappoint). I hope this initiative will not die out.
9. "Obituary of Jiří Matoušek". Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University. 12 March 2015. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
10. Review of Geometric Discrepancy by Allen D. Rogers, MR 1697825
11. Review of Lectures on Discrete Geometry by E. Hertel, MR 1899299
12. Blaga, Paul A. (March 2003), "Matoušek, Jiří, Lectures on Discrete Geometry" (PDF), Book Reviews, Studia Univ. Babeș-Bolyai, Mathematica 48 (1): 119–120.
13. Bárány, I. (September 2003), "Lectures on Discrete Geometry", Book Reviews, Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society 35 (5): 719–720, doi:10.1112/S0024609303269332.
14. Review of Using the Borsuk-Ulam theorem by Zdzisław Dzedzej, MR 1988723
15. Bárány, Imre (March 2004), "Using the Borsuk-Ulam Theorem: Lectures on Topological Methods in Combinatorics and Geometry", Book Review, Combinatorics, Probability and Computing 13 (2): 281–282, doi:10.1017/S096354830400608X.
16. Holder, Allen, "Reviewed Works: Understanding and Using Linear Programming by Jiří Matoušek, Bernd Gärtner; Introduction to Optimization by Pablo Pedregal", Review, American Mathematical Monthly 116 (5): 471–476, JSTOR 40391139.
17. Review of Thirty-three miniatures by Torsten Sander, MR 2656313
18. Díaz Sánchez, Raquel (2011), Thirty-three miniatures : mathematical and algorithmic applications of linear algebra [book review], European Mathematical Society.
19. Kolpakov, Alexander, "Thirty-three Miniatures: Mathematical and Algorithmic Applications of Linear Algebra, by Jiri Matousek" (PDF), Elemente der Mathematik.
20. Review of Approximation Algorithms and Semidefinite Programming by Jane Juan-Juan Ye, MR 3015090

External links

• Jiri Matousek home page
• List of publications from Microsoft Academic Search