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George Szekeres - The Happy Ending problem

George Szekeres - The Happy Ending problem: Encyclopedia II - George Szekeres - The Happy Ending problem

The so-called Happy Ending problem is an example of how mathematics pervaded George's life. During 1933, George and several other students met frequently in Budapest to discuss mathematics. At one of these meetings, Esther Klein proposed the following problem: Given five points in the plane in general position, prove that four of them form a convex quadrilateral. After allowing George, Paul Erdős, and the other students to scratch their heads for some time, Esther explained her proof. Subsequently George an ...

George Szekeres: Encyclopedia II - George Szekeres - The Happy Ending problem

George Szekeres - The Happy Ending problem

Given five points in the plane in general position, prove that four of them form a convex quadrilateral.

After allowing George, Paul Erdős, and the other students to scratch their heads for some time, Esther explained her proof. Subsequently George and Paul wrote a paper (1935) that generalises this result; it is regarded as one of the foundational works in the field of combinatorial geometry. Erdös dubbed the original problem the "Happy Ending" problem because it resulted in George and Esther's marriage in 1937.

George and Esther died within a half an hour of each other, on the same day, 28 August 2005.

Other related archives

1911, 2005, Adelaide, August 28, Australia, Budapest, Béla Bollobás, China, Esther Klein, Esther Szekeres, Generalized continued fraction, Happy Ending problem, Hungary, John Coates, May 29, Nazi, Order of Australia, Paul Erdős, Paul Turán, Powerful number, Ronald Graham, Shanghai, Snark (graph theory), Sydney, Sydney University, University of Adelaide, University of New South Wales, World War II, combinatorial geometry, convex, general position, mathematician, quadrilateral

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The Happy Ending problem", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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