László Fejes Tóth
| László Fejes Tóth | |
|---|---|
László Fejes Tóth,1991.
Photo by Ludwig Danzer |
|
| Born |
László Tóth March 12, 1915 Szeged, Hungary |
| Died | March 17, 2005 (aged 90) Budapest |
| Awards | Kossuth Prize (1957), State Award (1973), Gauss Bicentennial Medal (1977), and Gold Medal of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2002) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Pázmány Péter University, as of 1950 Eötvös Loránd University |
| Academic work | |
| Main interests | Discrete and combinatorial geometry |
| Notable works | Lagerungen in der Ebene, auf der Kugel und im Raum; Regular Figures |
| Notable ideas | Theorems on packings and coverings of geometrical objects, including the packing of spheres |
| Influenced | Thomas Hales |
László Fejes Tóth (Hungarian: Fejes Tóth László, pronounced [ˈfɛjɛʃ ˈtoːt ˈlaːsloː] Szeged, 12 March 1915 – Budapest, 17 March 2005) was a Hungarian mathematician who specialized in geometry. He proved that a lattice pattern is the most efficient way to pack centrally symmetric convex sets on the Euclidean plane (a generalization of Thue's theorem, a 2-dimensional analog of the Kepler conjecture). He also investigated the sphere packing problem. He was the first to show, in 1953, that proof of the Kepler conjecture can be reduced to a finite case analysis and, later, that the problem might be solved using a computer.
He was a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (from 1962) and a director of the Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics (1970-1983). He received both the Kossuth Prize (1957) and State Award (1973).
Together with H.S.M. Coxeter and Paul Erdős, he laid the foundations of discrete geometry.
As described in a 1999 interview with István Hargittai, Fejes Tóth’s father was a railway worker, who advanced in his career within the railway organization ultimately to earn a doctorate in law. Fejes Tóth’s mother taught Hungarian and German literature in a high school. The family moved to Budapest, when Fejes Tóth was five; there he attended elementary school and high school—the Széchenyi István Reálgimnázium—where his interest in mathematics began.
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