Paul Monsky

Last updated
Paul Monsky
Paul Monsky.jpg
Paul Monsky at Oberwolfach in 2009
Born (1936-06-17) June 17, 1936 (age 87)
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Swarthmore College
University of Chicago
Known for Monsky–Washnitzer cohomology, Monsky's theorem
Scientific career
Fields Mathematics
Institutions Brandeis University
Doctoral advisor Walter Lewis Baily, Jr.

Paul Monsky (born June 17, 1936) is an American mathematician and professor at Brandeis University.

After earning a bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College, he received his Ph.D. in 1962 from the University of Chicago under the supervision of Walter Lewis Baily, Jr. [1] He has introduced the Monsky–Washnitzer cohomology and he has worked intensively on Hilbert–Kunz functions and Hilbert–Kunz multiplicity. In 2007, Monsky and Holger Brenner gave an example showing that tight closure does not commute with localization. [2]

Monsky's theorem, the statement that a square cannot be divided into an odd number of equal-area triangles, is named after Monsky, who published the first proof of it in 1970. [3]

In the mid-1970s, Monsky stopped paying U.S. federal income tax in protest against military spending. He resisted income tax withholding by claiming extra exemptions, and this led to a criminal conviction on tax charges in 1980. [4]

Related Research Articles

The Kepler conjecture, named after the 17th-century mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler, is a mathematical theorem about sphere packing in three-dimensional Euclidean space. It states that no arrangement of equally sized spheres filling space has a greater average density than that of the cubic close packing and hexagonal close packing arrangements. The density of these arrangements is around 74.05%.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sperner's lemma</span> Theorem on triangulation graph colorings

In mathematics, Sperner's lemma is a combinatorial result on colorings of triangulations, analogous to the Brouwer fixed point theorem, which is equivalent to it. It states that every Sperner coloring of a triangulation of an -dimensional simplex contains a cell whose vertices all have different colors.

In arithmetic combinatorics, Szemerédi's theorem is a result concerning arithmetic progressions in subsets of the integers. In 1936, Erdős and Turán conjectured that every set of integers A with positive natural density contains a k-term arithmetic progression for every k. Endre Szemerédi proved the conjecture in 1975.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Invariant subspace problem</span> Partially-unsolved problem in mathematics

In the field of mathematics known as functional analysis, the invariant subspace problem is a partially unresolved problem asking whether every bounded operator on a complex Banach space sends some non-trivial closed subspace to itself. Many variants of the problem have been solved, by restricting the class of bounded operators considered or by specifying a particular class of Banach spaces. The problem is still open for separable Hilbert spaces.

Hilbert's seventeenth problem is one of the 23 Hilbert problems set out in a celebrated list compiled in 1900 by David Hilbert. It concerns the expression of positive definite rational functions as sums of quotients of squares. The original question may be reformulated as:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manjul Bhargava</span> Canadian-American mathematician

Manjul Bhargava is a Canadian-American mathematician. He is the Brandon Fradd, Class of 1983, Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, the Stieltjes Professor of Number Theory at Leiden University, and also holds Adjunct Professorships at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, and the University of Hyderabad. He is known primarily for his contributions to number theory.

In mathematical physics, Gleason's theorem shows that the rule one uses to calculate probabilities in quantum physics, the Born rule, can be derived from the usual mathematical representation of measurements in quantum physics together with the assumption of non-contextuality. Andrew M. Gleason first proved the theorem in 1957, answering a question posed by George W. Mackey, an accomplishment that was historically significant for the role it played in showing that wide classes of hidden-variable theories are inconsistent with quantum physics. Multiple variations have been proven in the years since. Gleason's theorem is of particular importance for the field of quantum logic and its attempt to find a minimal set of mathematical axioms for quantum theory.

In mathematics, in the area of commutative algebra, tight closure is an operation defined on ideals in positive characteristic. It was introduced by Melvin Hochster and Craig Huneke.

In number theory, the Green–Tao theorem, proved by Ben Green and Terence Tao in 2004, states that the sequence of prime numbers contains arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions. In other words, for every natural number k, there exist arithmetic progressions of primes with k terms. The proof is an extension of Szemerédi's theorem. The problem can be traced back to investigations of Lagrange and Waring from around 1770.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Chudnovsky</span> Mathematician and engineer

Maria Chudnovsky is an Israeli-American mathematician working on graph theory and combinatorial optimization. She is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow.

In mathematics, the Ax–Grothendieck theorem is a result about injectivity and surjectivity of polynomials that was proved independently by James Ax and Alexander Grothendieck.

Philippe Blanchard has been a Professor of Mathematical Physics at Faculty of Physics, Bielefeld University since 1980. He is both director of the Research Center BiBoS and deputy managing director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research at Bielefeld University.

In arithmetic combinatorics, the corners theorem states that for every , for large enough , any set of at least points in the grid contains a corner, i.e., a triple of points of the form with . It was first proved by Miklós Ajtai and Endre Szemerédi in 1974 using Szemerédi's theorem. In 2003, József Solymosi gave a short proof using the triangle removal lemma.

In geometry, Monsky's theorem states that it is not possible to dissect a square into an odd number of triangles of equal area. In other words, a square does not have an odd equidissection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Equidissection</span> Partition of a polygon into triangles of equal area

In geometry, an equidissection is a partition of a polygon into triangles of equal area. The study of equidissections began in the late 1960s with Monsky's theorem, which states that a square cannot be equidissected into an odd number of triangles. In fact, most polygons cannot be equidissected at all.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Craig Huneke</span> American mathematician

Craig Lee Huneke is an American mathematician specializing in commutative algebra. He is a professor at the University of Virginia.

In algebra, the Hilbert–Kunz function of a local ring (R, m) of prime characteristic p is the function

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Pardon</span> American mathematician

John Vincent Pardon is an American mathematician who works on geometry and topology. He is primarily known for having solved Gromov's problem on distortion of knots, for which he was awarded the 2012 Morgan Prize. He is currently a permanent member of the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics and a full professor of mathematics at Princeton University.

References

  1. Paul Monsky at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  2. Brenner, Holger; Monsky, Paul (2010). "Tight closure does not commute with localization". Annals of Mathematics . 171 (1): 571–588. arXiv: 0710.2913 . doi:10.4007/annals.2010.171.571. MR   2630050. S2CID   5950298.
  3. Aigner, Martin; Ziegler, Günter M. (2010), "One square and an odd number of triangles", Proofs from The Book (4th ed.), Berlin: Springer-Verlag, pp. 131–138, doi:10.1007/978-3-642-00856-6_20 .
  4. "Professor to Face Trial In Antiwar Tax Protest". New York Times. 10 March 1980. p. D8.
    • Syre, Steven W. (10 April 1980). "More Individuals, Groups Refuse to Pay Taxes". The Bryan Times. p. 12.