Robert Clay Prim III (September 25, 1921 – November 18, 2021) was an American mathematician and computer scientist.

Biography

Robert Clay Prim III was born in Sweetwater, Texas on September 25, 1921. In 1941, Prim received his B.S. in

Electrical Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from

The University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

, where he also met his wife Alice (Hutter) Prim (1921–2009), whom he married in 1942. Later in 1949, he received his Ph.D. in

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, where he also worked as a research associate from 1948 until 1949. During the climax of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

(1941–1944), Prim worked as an engineer for

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...

. From 1944 until 1949, he was hired by the United States Naval Ordnance Lab as an engineer and later a mathematician. At

Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, the company operates several lab ...

, he served as director of mathematics research from 1958 to 1961. There, Prim developed

Prim's algorithm In computer science, Prim's algorithm is a greedy algorithm that finds a minimum spanning tree for a Weighted graph, weighted undirected graph. This means it finds a subset of the edge (graph theory), edges that forms a Tree (graph theory), tree ...

. Also during his tenure at Bell Labs, Robert Prim assisted the Weapons Reliability Committee at Sandia National Laboratory chaired by Walter McNair in 1951. After Bell Laboratories, Prim became vice president of research at

Sandia National Laboratories Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), also known as Sandia, is one of three research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Headquartered in Kirtland Air Force B ...

. During his career at Bell Laboratories, Robert Prim along with coworker

Joseph Kruskal Joseph Bernard Kruskal, Jr. (; January 29, 1928 – September 19, 2010) was an American mathematician, statistician, computer scientist and psychometrician. Personal life Kruskal was born to a Jewish family in New York City to a successful fu ...

developed two different algorithms (see

greedy algorithm A greedy algorithm is any algorithm that follows the problem-solving heuristic of making the locally optimal choice at each stage. In many problems, a greedy strategy does not produce an optimal solution, but a greedy heuristic can yield locally ...

) for finding a

minimum spanning tree A minimum spanning tree (MST) or minimum weight spanning tree is a subset of the edges of a connected, edge-weighted undirected graph that connects all the vertices together, without any cycles and with the minimum possible total edge weight. ...

in a weighted

graph Graph may refer to: Mathematics *Graph (discrete mathematics), a structure made of vertices and edges **Graph theory, the study of such graphs and their properties *Graph (topology), a topological space resembling a graph in the sense of discret ...

, a basic stumbling block in computer network design. His self-named algorithm,

, was originally discovered in 1930 by mathematician

Vojtěch Jarník Vojtěch Jarník (; 22 December 1897 – 22 September 1970) was a Czech mathematician. He worked for many years as a professor and administrator at Charles University, and helped found the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. He is the namesake of ...

and later independently by Prim in 1957. It was later rediscovered by

Edsger Dijkstra Edsger Wybe Dijkstra ( ; ; 11 May 1930 – 6 August 2002) was a Dutch computer scientist, programmer, software engineer, mathematician, and science essayist. Born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Dijkstra studied mathematics and physics and the ...

in 1959. It is sometimes referred to as the ''DJP algorithm'' or the ''Jarník algorithm''. Robert C. Prim died in

San Clemente, California San Clemente (; Spanish for " St. Clement" ) is a coastal city in southern Orange County, California, United States. It was named in 1925 after the Spanish colonial island (which was named after a Pope from the first century). Located in the ...

on November 18, 2021, at the age of 100.

References

External links

A History of Fundamental Mathematics Research at Bell Labs

Sweetwater, Texas Chamber of Commerce

Dr. Robert Clay Prim - Bio/Description, IT History Society

A History of Exceptional Service in the National Interest, Sandia National Laboratories
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Prim, Robert C. 1921 births 2021 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 20th-century American scientists 21st-century American mathematicians American computer scientists American electrical engineers American men centenarians University of Texas at Austin alumni Princeton University alumni Sandia National Laboratories people Scientists at Bell Labs People from Sweetwater, Texas

Biography

See also

References

External links