Rényi

Alfréd Rényi

Born: 30 March 1921 in Budapest, Hungary
Died: 1 Feb 1970 in Budapest, Hungary

Previous (Chronologically) Next     Biographies Index

Previous ( Alphabetically) Next          Welcome page
Rényi obtained a Ph.D. at Szeged under F Riesz for work on Cauchy-Fourier series. He was taught by Féjér at Budapest, then he went to Russia and worked with Linnik on the theory of numbers. After returning to Hungary he worked on probability which was to be his main research topic throughout his life.

He published joint work with Erdös on random graphs and also considered random space filling curves. Known by the nickname of Buba, he is best remembered for proving that every even integer is the sum of a prime and an almost prime number, he is also remembered as the author of the anecdote

a mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems

Turán developed the anecdote by describing weak coffee as fit only for lemmas .

Rényi was the founder, and for 20 years the director, of the Mathematical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He was a famous raconteur remembered for many performances of his dialogue, which he spoke with his daughter, on the nature of mathematics.

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. D G Kendall, Alfréd Rényi, Journal of Applied Statistics 7 (1970), 509-522. 
Previous (Chronologically) Next     Biographies Index

Previous ( Alphabetically) Next          Welcome page

History Topics Index              Famous curves index

Chronologies                           Birthplace Map

Mathematicians of the day  Anniversaries for the year

Search Form   Simple Search Form   Search Suggestions
JOC/EFR February 1996