David Peter Robbins (12 August 1942 in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

– 4 September 2003 in

Princeton Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the Unit ...

) was an American

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 ...

. He is most famous for introducing alternating sign matrices.. He is also known for his work on generalizations of

Heron's formula In geometry, Heron's formula (or Hero's formula) gives the area of a triangle in terms of the three side lengths Letting be the semiperimeter of the triangle, s = \tfrac12(a + b + c), the area is A = \sqrt. It is named after first-century ...

on the area of polygons, due to which Robbins pentagons ( cyclic pentagons with integer side lengths and areas) were named after him. Robbins grew up in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, where he attended the Fieldston School. He studied at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

, where his undergraduate advisor was

Andrew Gleason Andrew Mattei Gleason (19212008) was an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to widely varied areas of mathematics, including the solution of Hilbert's fifth problem, and was a leader in reform and innovation in teaching at ...

. He went to

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

to do his graduate work and, after a hiatus during which he taught at Fieldston, finished his Ph.D. in 1970. He then taught at MIT,

Phillips Exeter Academy Phillips Exeter Academy (often called Exeter or PEA) is an Independent school, independent, co-educational, college-preparatory school in Exeter, New Hampshire. Established in 1781, it is America's sixth-oldest boarding school and educates an es ...

Hamilton College Hamilton College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York, Clinton, New York. It was established as the Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and received its c ...

and

Washington and Lee University Washington and Lee University (Washington and Lee or W&L) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Lexington, Virginia, United States. Established in 1749 as Augusta Academy, it is among ...

. In 1980 he moved to

Princeton, New Jersey The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...

and worked at the Institute for Defense Analyses Center for Communications Research there until his death from

pancreatic cancer Pancreatic cancer arises when cell (biology), cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a Neoplasm, mass. These cancerous cells have the malignant, ability to invade other parts of ...

. A symposium was held in Robbins' honor in June 2003, the papers from which were published as a special issue of the journal ''

Advances in Applied Mathematics ''Advances in Applied Mathematics'' is a peer-reviewed mathematics journal publishing research on applied mathematics. Its founding editor was Gian-Carlo Rota (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); from 1980 to 1999, Joseph P. S. Kung (Universi ...

''. The

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary edu ...

established a prize named in his honor in 2005, given every three years to one or more researchers in algebra, combinatorics, or discrete mathematics. The first winner of the prize, in 2008, was

Neil Sloane __NOTOC__ Neil James Alexander Sloane FLSW (born October 10, 1939) is a British-American mathematician. His major contributions are in the fields of combinatorics, error-correcting codes, and sphere packing. Sloane is best known for being the cre ...

for the

On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS) is an online database of integer sequences. It was created and maintained by Neil Sloane while researching at AT&T Labs. He transferred the intellectual property and hosting of the OEIS to th ...

. 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, ...

has another prize, the David P. Robbins Prize (AMS) with the same name the first winners of which were Samuel P. Ferguson and Thomas C. Hales for their work on the

Kepler conjecture 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 s ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Robbins, David P. 1942 births 2003 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Combinatorialists Harvard University alumni Phillips Exeter Academy faculty Deaths from pancreatic cancer in New Jersey Hamilton College (New York) faculty

See also

References