the student and her professor
Herbert Wilf
Herbert Wilf was a snobby math professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He only gave attention to the students who pass their qualifying exams. However, he gave special attention to the student who got the highest score during the exam, and try to get him/her to be interested in combinatorics; a branch of math that deals with the study of finite discrete structures. In 1971, Wilf’s eyes were focused on a girl who got the best score in that test. Her score was so high that the gap between her and the second best was not even close.
A visual representation of
the Ramsey Theory
Wilf then approached this girl and gave her a book that contains a chapter about the Ramsey theory, and asked her to read it. He believed that this would get the student be interested in combinatorics, since she only knew a little about the said topic. A week after that, they met again, and he was curious about what her take was on the Ramsey Theory. She simply said that it was fine, then she flipped open her book to a key theorem and calmly said to him, “I think I could do better with this proof”. She then goes to the blackboard and wrote what she had just discovered. Amazed with what was written before his eyes, Wilf told the student that that was a major result in the Ramsey Theory, and that she had already done 2/3 of her thesis. The most incredible part was it only took her a week to figure it out. Not to mention that she didn’t even have a clear background on the said subject.
Meet mathophile Fan Chung
Her take on the Ramsey Theory did not stop there. A year after that, Wilf became her supervisor, and in 1973, she was able to publish her original results on the Ramsey theory on a paper entitled “On the Ramsey Numbers” , which can be found in the publication Discrete Mathematics.
Now who is this brilliant student? This person is no other than… Fan Rong King Chung- Graham.
Fan Chung for short.
Now who is this brilliant student? This person is no other than… Fan Rong King Chung- Graham.
Fan Chung for short.