Johann (János) A. Makowsky (born March 12, 1948) is a Hungarian-born naturalised Swiss mathematician who works in

mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of Logic#Formal logic, formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory (also known as computability theory). Research in mathematical logic com ...

and the logical foundations of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

and

combinatorics Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and as an end to obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many ...

. He studied at

ETH Zurich ETH Zurich (; ) is a public university in Zurich, Switzerland. Founded in 1854 with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists, the university focuses primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. ETH Zurich ran ...

from 1967–73. He was a student in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

Ernst Specker Ernst Paul Specker (11 February 1920, Zürich – 10 December 2011, Zürich) was a Swiss mathematician. Much of his most influential work was on Quine's New Foundations, a set theory with a universal set, but he is most famous for the Kochen� ...

and Hans Läuchli in mathematical logic, (Diploma in Mathematics and Physics 1971, Dr. math.sc. in 1974), of

Beno Eckmann Beno Eckmann (31 March 1917 – 25 November 2008) was a Switzerland, Swiss mathematician who made contributions to algebraic topology, homological algebra, group theory, and differential geometry. Life Born to a Jewish family in Bern, Eckmann r ...

(

Topology Topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is the branch of mathematics concerned with the properties of a Mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformat ...

and

Geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

) and

Volker Strassen Volker Strassen (born April 29, 1936) is a German mathematician, a professor emeritus in the department of mathematics and statistics at the University of Konstanz. For important contributions to the analysis of algorithms he has received many a ...

(Algorithmics), and in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

Andrzej Mostowski Andrzej Mostowski (1 November 1913 – 22 August 1975) was a Polish mathematician. He worked primarily in logic and foundations of mathematics and is perhaps best remembered for the Mostowski collapse lemma. He was a member of the Polish Academy ...

and Witek Marek, where he spent 1972 as an exchange student. Makowsky held visiting positions at the Banach Center in Warsaw (Poland),

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

(USA),

Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a Public university, public research university in British Columbia, Canada. It maintains three campuses in Greater Vancouver, respectively located in Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, British Columbia, Surrey, and ...

(Canada),

University of Florence The University of Florence ( Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Firenze'') (in acronym UNIFI) is an Italian public research university located in Florence, Italy. It comprises 12 schools and has around 50,000 students enrolled. History The f ...

(Italy),

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 ...

(USA),

Lausanne University The University of Lausanne (UNIL; ) in Lausanne, Switzerland, was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second-oldest in Switzerland, and one of the oldest universities ...

and

(Switzerland). He held regular positions at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...

and the

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology is a public university, public research university located in Haifa, Israel. Established in 1912 by Jews under the dominion of the Ottoman Empire, the Technion is the oldest university in the coun ...

(Haifa, Israel) where he was a full professor. Among his various contributions are: * In

model theory In mathematical logic, model theory is the study of the relationship between theory (mathematical logic), formal theories (a collection of Sentence (mathematical logic), sentences in a formal language expressing statements about a Structure (mat ...

, the solution of two open problems in categoricity theory and his study of logics with various

interpolation In the mathematics, mathematical field of numerical analysis, interpolation is a type of estimation, a method of constructing (finding) new data points based on the range of a discrete set of known data points. In engineering and science, one ...

and

compactness In mathematics, specifically general topology, compactness is a property that seeks to generalize the notion of a closed and bounded subset of Euclidean space. The idea is that a compact space has no "punctures" or "missing endpoints", i.e., it ...

properties (partially with

Saharon Shelah Saharon Shelah (; , ; born July 3, 1945) is an Israeli mathematician. He is a professor of mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Rutgers University in New Jersey. Biography Shelah was born in Jerusalem on July 3, 1945. He is th ...

and Jonathan Stavi). * In

database theory Database theory encapsulates a broad range of topics related to the study and research of the theoretical realm of databases and database management systems. Theoretical aspects of data management include, among other areas, the foundations of q ...

, the first undecidability result of the consequence problem for database dependencies (with

Ashok Chandra Ashok K. Chandra (30 July 1948 – 15 November 2014) was a computer scientist at Microsoft Research in Mountain View, California, United States, where he was a general manager at the Internet Services Research Center. Chandra received his PhD in C ...

and Harry Lewis), his work unifying the

entity–relationship model An entity–relationship model (or ER model) describes interrelated things of interest in a specific domain of knowledge. A basic ER model is composed of entity types (which classify the things of interest) and specifies relationships that can e ...

and the

relational model The relational model (RM) is an approach to managing data using a structure and language consistent with first-order predicate logic, first described in 1969 by English computer scientist Edgar F. Codd, where all data are represented in terms of t ...

of databases (with Victor Markowitz), and his work on

Boyce–Codd normal form Boyce–Codd normal form (BCNF or 3.5NF) is a normal form used in database normalization. It is a slightly stricter version of the third normal form (3NF). By using BCNF, a database will remove all redundancies based on functional dependencies. ...

(with E.V. Ravve). * In

logic programming Logic programming is a programming, database and knowledge representation paradigm based on formal logic. A logic program is a set of sentences in logical form, representing knowledge about some problem domain. Computation is performed by applyin ...

, his fundamental studies of Horn formulas and their

complexity Complexity characterizes the behavior of a system or model whose components interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to non-linearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence. The term is generally used to c ...

(partially with B. Mahr and A. Itai) * In

graph algorithms An algorithm is fundamentally a set of rules or defined procedures that is typically designed and used to solve a specific problem or a broad set of problems. Broadly, algorithms define process(es), sets of rules, or methodologies that are to be f ...

, his unifying approach to

tree-width In graph theory, the treewidth of an undirected graph is an integer number which specifies, informally, how far the graph is from being a tree. The smallest treewidth is 1; the graphs with treewidth 1 are exactly the trees and the forests. An exa ...

and

clique-width In graph theory, the clique-width of a graph is a parameter that describes the structural complexity of the graph; it is closely related to treewidth, but unlike treewidth it can be small for dense graphs. It is defined as the minimum number of ...

via model theory, leading to a general theory of

graph polynomial In mathematics, a graph polynomial is a graph invariant whose value is a polynomial. Invariants of this type are studied in algebraic graph theory. Important graph polynomials include: *The characteristic polynomial, based on the graph's adjacency m ...

s and their definability in various logical formalisms (partially with I. Averbouch,

Bruno Courcelle Bruno Courcelle is a French mathematician and computer scientist, best known for Courcelle's theorem in graph theory. Life Courcelle earned his Ph.D. in 1976 from the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation, then called I ...

, B. Godlin, T. Kotek, U. Rotics and

Boris Zilber Boris Zilber (, born 1949) is a Soviet-British mathematician who works in mathematical logic, specifically model theory. He is a emeritus professor of mathematical logic at the University of Oxford. He obtained his doctorate (Candidate of Scien ...

). Makowsky was a founding member of the European Association of Computer Science Logic in 1992, its vice-president (2002–2004) and president (2004–2009), and was a member of EACSL's executive council till 2014. During his presidency he established the EACSL Ackermann Award for outstanding PhD theses in computer science logic. In 2008, an event dedicated to Makowsky on his 60th birthday was co-located with the annual meeting of the EACSL. Since 2016, he is a Professor Emeritus at the Faculty of Computer Science at the Technion, and continues his research and teaching and supervising graduate students

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Makowsky, Johann 1948 births Living people Swiss people of Hungarian descent Swiss mathematicians ETH Zurich alumni