mathematics

Larry Wos

Larry Wos is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Larry Wos rather than just read about it. In short: Lawrence T. Wos (1930–2020) was an American mathematician, a researcher in the Mathematics and Computer Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory.

Key takeaways

Larry Wos belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Larry Wos to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Larry Wos from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Lawrence T. Wos (1930–2020) was an American mathematician, a researcher in the Mathematics and Computer Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory.

Biography Wos studied at the University of Chicago, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1950 and a master's in mathematics in 1954, and went on for doctoral studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he received PhD in 1957 supervised by Reinhold Baer. He joined Argonne in 1957, and began using computers to prove mathematical theorems in 1963. Wos was congenitally blind. He was an avid bowler, the best male blind bowler in the US.

Awards and honors In 1982, Wos and his colleague Steve Winker were the first to win the Automated Theorem Proving Prize, given by the American Mathematical Society. In 1992, Wos was the first to win the Herbrand Award for his contributions to the field of automated deduction. A festschrift in his honor, Automated reasoning and its applications: essays in honor of Larry Wos (Robert Veroff, ed.) was published by the MIT Press in 1997 (ISBN 0-262-22055-5).

Books Wos and Gail W. Pieper are the coauthors of the books A Fascinating Country in the World of Computing: Your Guide to Automated Reasoning (World Scientific, 1999, ISBN 978-981-02-3910-7) and Automated Reasoning and the Discovery of Missing and Elegant Proofs (Rinton Press, 2003, ISBN 1-58949-023-1). Wos's collected works were published by World Scientific in 2000, in two volumes (ISBN 978-981-02-4001-1).

References

External links Publication list at DBLP Maria Paola Bonacina (with Franz Baader, Alan Bundy, Ulrich Furbach, Frank Pfenning, John Slaney, and Christoph Weidenbach), "In Memoriam: Larry Wos"

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Larry Wos

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Larry Wos claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Larry Wos before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Larry Wos ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Larry Wos

In research: Larry Wos appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Larry Wos in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Larry Wos is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1930 births, 2020 deaths, 20th-century American mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Larry Wos outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Larry Wos in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Larry Wos means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Larry Wos out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Larry Wos in simple terms?

Lawrence T. Wos (1930–2020) was an American mathematician, a researcher in the Mathematics and Computer Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory.

Why does Larry Wos matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Larry Wos?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Larry Wos.