Edward William Formanek (born May 6, 1942). is 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 ...

and

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

player. He is a professor emeritus of mathematics at

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

,.. and a FIDE International Master in chess.Player profile
World Chess Federation, retrieved 2015-02-02.

Mathematical career

Formanek earned his Ph.D. in 1970 from

Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...

, under the supervision of Stephen M. Gersten. He joined the Penn State faculty in 1978, and retired in 2009. In 1972, Formanek was one of two mathematicians to independently discover the central polynomials, which have applications to polynomial identity rings. With Vesselin Drensky, Formanek is the author of the book ''Polynomial Identity Rings'' (Birkhäuser, 2004). In 2012, he became one of the inaugural

fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

s 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, ...

Chess career

Formanek became a FIDE International Master in 1977. He has won the Pennsylvania State Championship five times, in 1984, 1993, 1997, 1998, and 2004. However, his most famous result from this series may be in 1988, when he led the tournament going into the last round but was defeated by computer program

HiTech HiTech, also referred to as Hitech, is a computer chess, chess machine built at Carnegie Mellon University under the direction of World Correspondence Chess Champion Hans J. Berliner. Members of the team working on HiTech included Berliner, Murra ...

,. becoming the first IM to lose a game to a computer.. Later the same year HiTech would also defeat grandmaster Arnold Denker.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Formanek, Edward William 1942 births Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American chess players Chess International Masters Rice University alumni Pennsylvania State University faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society