mathematics

Robin Thomas (mathematician)

Robin Thomas (mathematician) 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 Robin Thomas (mathematician) rather than just read about it. In short: Robin Thomas (August 22, 1962 – March 26, 2020) was a mathematician working in graph theory at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Thomas received his doctorate in 1985 from Charles University in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), under the supervision of Jaroslav Nešetřil.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Robin Thomas (August 22, 1962 – March 26, 2020) was a mathematician working in graph theory at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Thomas received his doctorate in 1985 from Charles University in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), under the supervision of Jaroslav Nešetřil. He joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in 1989, and became a Regents' Professor there, briefly serving as the department Chair.

Personal life Thomas was married to Icelandic operations researcher Sigrún Andradóttir, also a professor at Georgia Tech. On March 26, 2020, he died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis at the age of 57 after 12 years of struggle with the illness.

Awards Thomas was awarded the Fulkerson Prize for outstanding papers in discrete mathematics twice, in 1994 as co-author of a paper on the Hadwiger conjecture, and in 2009 for the proof of the strong perfect graph theorem. In 2011, he was awarded the Karel Janeček Foundation Neuron Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Mathematics. In 2012, he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. He was named a SIAM Fellow in 2018. The January 2023 issue of the Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B was a tribute to his work.

References

External links Personal homepage of Robin Thomas Liu, Chun-Hung (June 2022). "Legacy of Robin Thomas" (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society. 69 (6): 966–977. doi:10.1090/noti2497.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Robin Thomas (mathematician)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Robin Thomas (mathematician) 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 Robin Thomas (mathematician) 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 Robin Thomas (mathematician) 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 Robin Thomas (mathematician)

In research: Robin Thomas (mathematician) 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 Robin Thomas (mathematician) 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: Robin Thomas (mathematician) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1962 births, 2020 deaths, 20th-century Czech mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Robin Thomas (mathematician) 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 Robin Thomas (mathematician) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Robin Thomas (mathematician) 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 Robin Thomas (mathematician) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Robin Thomas (mathematician) in simple terms?

Why does Robin Thomas (mathematician) 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 Robin Thomas (mathematician)?

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 Robin Thomas (mathematician).