Imre Simon (August 14, 1943 – August 13, 2009) was a Hungarian-born

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

ian

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

and

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

. His research mainly focused on theoretical computer science,

automata theory Automata theory is the study of abstract machines and automata, as well as the computational problems that can be solved using them. It is a theory in theoretical computer science with close connections to cognitive science and mathematical l ...

, and tropical mathematics, a subject he founded, and which was so named because he lived in Brazil. He was a professor of mathematics at the

University of São Paulo The Universidade de São Paulo (, USP) is a public research university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo, and the largest public university in Brazil. The university was founded on 25 January 1934, regrouping already existing schools in ...

in Brazil. In 2005, the journal RAIRO-ITA published an issue dedicated to his life and work. He was also actively interested in questions about the impact of computing and information networks on human collaboration and the production of intellectual commons, and was an enthusiastic advocate for open collaborative information systems, of which

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

is an example. Simon came to Brazil with his parents after the

Hungarian Revolution of 1956 The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 4 November 1956; ), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was an attempted countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the policies caused by ...

. He studied electrical engineering in Sao Paulo, received his diploma in 1966, and his Ph.D. at the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a Public university, public research university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also op ...

in 1972, under Janusz Brzozowski with the thesis: ''Hierarchies of Events with Dot-Depth One''.Published works
/ref> He died of lung cancer in

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

on August 13, 2009, one day before his 66th birthday.

References

External links

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Personal home page
Brazilian computer scientists Hungarian emigrants to Brazil Brazilian Jews 20th-century Brazilian mathematicians 2009 deaths 1943 births Deaths from lung cancer in Brazil Recipients of the Great Cross of the National Order of Scientific Merit (Brazil) Academic staff of the University of São Paulo {{mathematician-stub