Dwijendra Kumar Ray-Chaudhuri (born November 1, 1933) is a

professor emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

. He and his student R. M. Wilson together solved the long-standing

Kirkman's schoolgirl problem Kirkman's schoolgirl problem is a problem in combinatorics proposed by Thomas Penyngton Kirkman in 1850 as Query VI in '' The Lady's and Gentleman's Diary'' (pg.48). The problem states: Fifteen young ladies in a school walk out three abreast f ...

in 1968, which contributed to developments in

design theory Design theory is a subfield of design research concerned with various theoretical approaches towards understanding and delineating design principles, design knowledge, and design practice. History Design theory has been approached and inte ...

. He received his M.Sc. (1956) in mathematics from the famous

Rajabazar Science College The University College of Science, Technology and Agriculture (formerly known as Rajabazar Science College) are two of five main campuses of the University of Calcutta (CU). The college served as the cradle of Indian sciences, where Raman won t ...

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (), is a Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Kolkata, Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate c ...

and Ph.D. in combinatorics (1959) from

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...

. He served as consultant at Cornell Medicine and Sloan Kettering, a professor and chairman of the Department of Mathematics at

, as well as a visiting professor of

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

and

University of Erlangen A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

, and

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is a leading research Institute under the Department of Atomic Energy of the Government of India. It is a public deemed university located at Navy Nagar, Colaba in Mumbai. It also has a centres in ...

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

. He is best known for his work in

and the theory of

error-correcting code In computing, telecommunication, information theory, and coding theory, forward error correction (FEC) or channel coding is a technique used for controlling errors in data transmission over unreliable or noisy communication channels. The centra ...

s, in which the class of

BCH code In coding theory, the Bose–Chaudhuri–Hocquenghem codes (BCH codes) form a class of cyclic error-correcting codes that are constructed using polynomials over a finite field (also called a '' Galois field''). BCH codes were invented in ...

s is partly named after him and his Ph.D. advisor

Bose Bose may refer to: * Bose (crater), a lunar crater. * ''Bose'' (film), a 2004 Indian Tamil film starring Srikanth and Sneha * Bose (surname), a surname (and list of people with the name) * Bose (given name), a given name * Bose, Italy, a ''fra ...

. Ray-Chaudhuri is the recipient of the

Euler Leonhard Euler ( ; ; ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss polymath who was active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, logician, geographer, and engineer. He founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made influential ...

Medal by the

Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications The Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications (ICA) is an international scientific organization formed in 1990 to increase the visibility and influence of the Combinatorics, combinatorial community. In pursuit of this goal, the ICA sponsors ...

for his career contributions to combinatorics. In 2000, a

festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

appeared on the occasion of his 65th birthday. In 2012 he became a fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

Honors, Awards, and Fellowships

*Senior U.S. Scientist Award of the Humboldt Foundation of Germany *Distinguished Senior Research Award from

*President for Forum in New Delhi *Foundation Fellow of the ICA *Euler Medal of ICA. *Fellow of the

Selected publications

* R. C. Bose and D. K. Ray-Chaudhuri: On a class of error correcting binary group codes. ''

Information and Control ''Information and Computation'' is a closed-access computer science journal published by Elsevier (formerly Academic Press). The journal was founded in 1957 under its former name ''Information and Control'' and given its current title in 1987. , t ...

'' 3(1): 68-79 (March 1960). * C. T. Abraham, S. P Ghosh and D. K. Ray-Chaudhuri: File organization schemes based on finite geometries. ''

Information and control ''Information and Computation'' is a closed-access computer science journal published by Elsevier (formerly Academic Press). The journal was founded in 1957 under its former name ''Information and Control'' and given its current title in 1987. , t ...

'', 1968. * D. K. Ray-Chaudhuri and R. M. Wilson: Solution of Kirkman's schoolgirl problem. '' Proc. symp. pure Math,'' 1971. * D. K. Ray-Chaudhuri and R. M. Wilson: On t-designs. '' Osaka Journal of Mathematics'' 1975.

References

Indian combinatorialists 20th-century Indian mathematicians Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Indian emigrants to the United States University of Calcutta alumni University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni Ohio State University faculty 20th-century American mathematicians Living people 1933 births {{US-mathematician-stub