Esther Szekeres

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Esther Szekeres
Born Esther Klein
(1910-02-20)February 20, 1910
Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary
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Adelaide, Australia
Nationality HungarianAustralian
Occupation Mathematician
Employer Macquarie University
Known for Happy ending problem
Spouse(s) George Szekeres
Children 2

Esther Szekeres (Hungarian: Klein Eszter; 20 February 1910 – 28 August 2005) was a HungarianAustralian mathematician.

Biography

Esther Klein was born to Ignaz Klein in a Jewish family in Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary in 1910. As a young woman in Budapest, Klein was a member of a group of Hungarians including Paul Erdős, George Szekeres and Pál Turán that convened over interesting mathematical problems.[1]

In 1933, Klein proposed to the group a combinatorial problem that Erdős named as the Happy Ending problem as it led to her marriage to George Szekeres in 1937, with whom she had two children.[2]

Following the outbreak of World War II, Esther and George Szekeres emigrated to Australia after spending several years in Hongkew, a community of refugees located in Shanghai, China.[3] In Australia, they originally settled in Adelaide before moving to Sydney in the 1960s.

In Sydney, Esther lectured at Macquarie University and was actively involved in mathematics enrichment for high-school students. In 1984, she jointly founded a weekly mathematics enrichment meeting that has since expanded into a programme of about 30 groups that continue to meet weekly and inspire high school students throughout Australia and New Zealand.[4]

In 2004, she and George moved back to Adelaide, where, on 28 August 2005, she and her husband died within an hour of each other.[1][2]

References

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