06/08/2018

IMPA researcher speaks about combinatorics at ICM 2018

Experts in graph theory and combinatorics, researchers Robert Morris, from IMPA, and József Balogh, from the University of Illinois, lectured on the container method for hypergraphs, research recently developed with Wojciech Samotij (Tel Aviv University). The technique has already found numerous applications in areas such as extremal graph theory, Ramsey theory, additive combinatorics, and discrete geometry.

Even though they live in different countries, the three scientists work intensely together and, in 2016, received the George Pólya Prize in Combinatorics for this research. “Most of the creative work is done when we are together. We travel a lot to have these meetings, and this research has been going on for several years. When we are apart, we focus more on the textual part and the details. Sometimes, one of us starts writing and gets stuck, and then it's passed on to the other to evaluate and generate new ideas. But it's really important to spend time together,” stated the IMPA researcher.

British scientist Morris, who has been in Brazil since 2012, was elected this year as a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC). Last year, he received the SBM Prize, which aims to distinguish the best original research article in Mathematics recently published by a young researcher residing in Brazil. On the 20th of this month, he was one of the recipients of the 2018 Delbert Ray Fulkerson Prize for the publication of his work "The chromatic thresholds of graphs". The award is granted every three years to up to three outstanding articles in the field of discrete mathematics.