The Passing of Ron Graham
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Annals of Combinatorics
OBITUARY
The Passing of Ron Graham Steve Butler October 31, 1935–July 6, 2020 Ronald Lewis Graham, known to almost everyone as Ron, passed away at his home on the evening of July 6. The cause of death was due to a progressive disease, atypical cystic fibrosis, that had been affecting him for years, but which in the last few months, then weeks and days caused an exponential decline in physical health. His mathematical abilities, however, never saw a decline. The day before, on July 5, Ron had reached out to several colleagues to talk about math and ongoing papers. Even on the morning of July 6, he was wanting to talk math, but was not physically able to carry a conversation. Ron’s first published papers, based on his dissertation in combinatorial number theory under the direction of Derrick H. Lehmer, appeared in 1963, though his mathematical explorations had started years earlier when he would carry out long computations (by hand!) of various mathematical problems. Immediately after graduation, he joined Bell Labs (later AT&T Labs) where his mathematical interests, and output, broadened considerably. Over the course of his life, he had approximately 400 publications (with more yet to come) making fundamental contributions to most fields in combinatorics. His publications are maintained online at RonGraham.org. At his passing, he also left behind hundreds of folders containing decades of computations, successful and failed attempts at problems, untapped ideas, and more. These folders will continue to be a source of new ideas for years to come, and so the mathematical contributions of Ron Graham will continue. Mathematical Influence In addition to his publications, Ron was a speaker in high demand who was well known for an ability to deliver talks which were both highly technical and entertaining. Moreover, his position at Bell Labs allowed him a high degree of support and flexibility which he was able to use to travel extensively. He soon became a central hub who was able to connect people and problems together, and was able to mentor and develop young mathematicians in combinatorics 0123456789().: V,-vol
The Passing of Ron Graham
and beyond. He also served on the editorial boards of dozens of journals (simultaneously!). (And if that was not enough, in his spare time he was also active in juggling and trampolining.) His research areas included the following. • Ramsey theory, where with Bruce Rothschild and Joel Spencer, he literally wrote the book on the subject. He also popularized the notions of Ramsey theory through his eponymous Graham’s number. • Combinatorial number theory, the area of his dissertation, he continued producing results in this area right through to the end and had lifelong interests in Egyptian fractions and other number theory problems. • Computational geometry, where his paper on the Graham scan for finding a convex hull of a set of points became one of the first papers in the field opening up the subject where hundreds of researchers followed, not so bad for a paper which
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