Béla Bollobás facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Béla Bollobás
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| Born | 3 August 1943 Budapest, Hungary
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| Alma mater | Eötvös Loránd University Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Known for | Functional analysis combinatorics Extremal graph theory percolation theory graph polynomials |
| Spouse(s) | Gabriella Bollobás |
| Awards | Senior Whitehead Prize (2007) Bocskai Prize (2015) Széchenyi Prize (2017) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics Random graphs Extremal graph theory |
| Institutions | Eötvös Loránd University University of Cambridge University of Memphis |
| Doctoral advisor | László Fejes Tóth Paul Erdős Frank Adams |
| Doctoral students |
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Béla Bollobás is a famous mathematician. He was born in Hungary on August 3, 1943. He is also a British citizen. He has worked on many different areas of mathematics. These include functional analysis, combinatorics, and graph theory. He was greatly inspired by another famous mathematician, Paul Erdős, from when he was 14 years old.
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Early Life and Learning
As a student, Béla Bollobás was very good at math. He competed in the first three International Mathematical Olympiads. He won two gold medals in these competitions. After hearing about his wins, Paul Erdős invited him to lunch. They stayed in touch after that.
Bollobás wrote his first math paper with Erdős in 1962. He was still in high school at the time. This paper was about problems in graph theory.
With Erdős's help, Bollobás wanted to study in Cambridge, England. It was hard to get permission from the Hungarian government. He finally spent a year there as an undergraduate. However, he was not allowed to return for his PhD studies. He earned his first PhD in discrete geometry in Budapest in 1967. His advisors were László Fejes Tóth and Paul Erdős.
After spending time in Moscow and Oxford, he decided not to return to Hungary. This was because he was unhappy with the Soviet actions in Hungary in 1956. He then went to Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1972, he earned his second PhD there. This one was in functional analysis. He became a Fellow of Trinity College in 1970.
His main work is in combinatorics, especially graph theory. He is very interested in extremal graph theory and random graph theory.
His Work as a Mathematician
Béla Bollobás has been a Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, since 1970. In 1996, he became a special professor at the University of Memphis. In 2005, he received a senior research fellowship at Trinity College.
Bollobás has made many important discoveries in math. He has worked on extremal graph theory and functional analysis. He also studied random graphs and percolation theory. For example, he worked with Paul Erdős to understand dense graphs. He was the first to explain how random graphs change. He also figured out the chromatic number of random graphs.
He has worked with many other mathematicians. These include Imre Leader, Richard Arratia, Gregory Sorkin, and Oliver Riordan. They created new types of graph polynomials. He also studied how properties of graphs behave. With Paul Smith and Andrew Uzzell, he looked at random cellular automata. With József Balogh, Hugo Duminil-Copin, and Robert Morris, he studied bootstrap percolation.
Besides his many research papers, Bollobás has written several books. Some of his research books are Extremal Graph Theory (1978) and Random Graphs (1985). He also wrote Percolation (2006) with Oliver Riordan. For students, he wrote Modern Graph Theory (1979) and Combinatorics (1990). He also published a fun book of math problems called The Art of Mathematics – Coffee Time in Memphis (2006). This book has drawings by his wife, Gabriella Bollobás.
Many of Bollobás's students have become successful mathematicians. These include Timothy Gowers, who won a very important award called the Fields Medal in 1998.
In 2007, he received the Senior Whitehead Prize. In 2011, he was chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society. This is a great honor for scientists in the UK. He was recognized for his big contributions to many areas of combinatorics. This includes random graphs and extremal graphs. His textbooks have also been very important. In 2012, he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
Awards and Honors
Béla Bollobás was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2011. This award recognized him as one of the world's top mathematicians in combinatorics. The Royal Society said he made major contributions to many areas. These include random graphs, percolation, and extremal graphs. They also noted that his classic textbooks have helped define these subjects. His work has made Britain a leading country in probabilistic and extremal combinatorics.
In 1998, he was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berlin. He became a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences in 2013. He also joined the Academy of Europea in 2017 and the Academia Brasileira Ciencias (ABC) in 2023. He received an honorary doctorate from Adam Mickiewicz University in 2013. In 2016, he received the Bocskai Prize. He was awarded the Széchenyi Prize in 2017.
About His Life
Béla Bollobás's father was a doctor. His wife, Gabriella Bollobás, was an actress and musician in Hungary. She later moved to England and became a sculptor. She has created busts (sculptures of heads and shoulders) of many famous mathematicians and scientists. These include Paul Erdős, Stephen Hawking, and John von Neumann. They have one son named Mark.
Bollobás is also a talented athlete. He represented the University of Oxford in modern pentathlon. He also represented the University of Cambridge in fencing.
Selected Books
- Extremal Graph Theory. Academic Press 1978.
- Graph theory- an introductory course. Springer 1979.
- Random Graphs. Academic Press 1985.
- Combinatorics - set systems, hypergraphs, families of vectors, and combinatorial probability. Cambridge University Press 1986.
- Linear Analysis – an introductory course. Cambridge University Press 1990.
- with Alan Baker, András Hajnal (ed.): A tribute to Paul Erdös. Cambridge University Press 1990.
- (ed.): Probabilistic combinatorics and its applications. American Mathematical Society 1991.
- with Andrew Thomason (ed.): Combinatorics, Geometry and Probability- a tribute to Paul Erdös. Cambridge University Press 1997.
- Modern Graph Theory. Springer 1998.
- (ed.): Contemporary Combinatorics. Springer und Janos Bolyai Mathematical Society, Budapest 2002.
- with Oliver Riordan: Percolation. Cambridge University Press 2006.
- The Art of Mathematics – Coffee Time in Memphis. Cambridge University Press 2006 (with drawings by his wife Gabrielle Bollobás).
- with Robert Kozma, Dezső Miklós: Handbook of Large-Scale Random Networks. Springer 2009.
