Maria Silvia Lucido facts for kids

Maria Silvia Lucido (born April 22, 1963 – died March 4, 2008) was a smart Italian mathematician. She was an expert in a field called group theory. She also worked as a researcher in mathematics at the University of Udine.

Life and Education

Maria Silvia Lucido was born in Vicenza, Italy, on April 22, 1963. Before becoming a mathematician, she worked in a bank and a travel agency. In 1986, she decided to study mathematics at the University of Padua. She finished her studies and graduated in 1991.

Even as a student, Maria started doing research on finite groups. These are special collections of numbers or objects that follow certain rules when you combine them. She wrote her first big paper on this topic with her professor, Franco Napolitani.

She continued her studies and earned her Ph.D. (a very advanced degree) in 1996. Her Ph.D. paper was about "prime graphs of finite groups." This was a new way to look at these groups using diagrams.

After her Ph.D., Maria did more research at the University of Padua. She also traveled to the United States as a Fulbright scholar to study at Michigan State University. In 1999, she got a permanent job as a researcher at the University of Udine.

Sadly, Maria Silvia Lucido passed away in a car accident on March 4, 2008. She was survived by her husband and two sons.

Her Important Research

Maria Silvia Lucido was best known for her work on something called "prime graphs" of finite groups. Imagine these graphs as special diagrams. They have "dots" (called vertices) for each prime factor related to a group. They also have "lines" (called edges) connecting these dots if the group has certain properties.

Her work helped scientists understand these complex groups better. Here are some of her important discoveries:

• She showed that the parts of these graphs are connected in a special way. The longest path between any two dots was never more than five steps. For simpler groups, it was even shorter, only three steps.
• She also proved that if a prime graph looked like a "tree" (a graph with no closed loops), it could only have up to eight dots. For simpler groups, it had even fewer, up to four dots.
• She helped figure out which simple groups had prime graphs where all connected parts were "cliques." A clique is a part of a graph where every dot is connected to every other dot.

Maria also started a series of summer schools in Venice. These schools taught students about the theory of finite groups. They began in 2004 and were sponsored by the University of Udine. After she passed away, the schools held in 2010, 2011, and 2013 were dedicated to her memory.