back
13 comments
Prof. Matoušek [1] was arguably one of Europe's best dual scientists/textbook writers of his time. If you are a math/CS theory persond and you are interested in picking up a book of his, I recommend "Mathematics++: Selected Topics Beyond the Basic Courses" [2].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ji%C5%99%C3%AD_Matou%C5%A1ek_(...

[2]: https://bookstore.ams.org/stml-75

---

Also, can't help myself but mention (in good spirits) that this is a repost:

> 33 Miniatures: Mathematical and Algorithmic Applications of Linear Algebra [pdf] (cuni.cz)

> 2 points by NotOscarWilde on Dec 27, 2013 | past | web

> Also, can't help myself

Why? 2013, no discussion. How is that remotely interesting to anyone?

I've updated my original answer to make it even more clear that it is a jovial observation with only a hint of envy. :-)
According to his Wikipedia article, he held a professor position without a PhD. Is that usual in parts of Europe? That seems unthinkable in the US.
His full titles were prof. RNDr. Jiří Matoušek, DrSc; where the "DrSc" part was more than what is now recognized as a PhD. Scientific titles used to work differently in Eastern Europe.
His wikipedia article doesn't mention anything about a PhD as far as I can see, in particular it doesn't mention he didn't have one.

According to https://inf.ethz.ch/news-and-events/spotlights/jiri-matousek... he did have a doctorate.

"According to his Wikipedia article, he held a professor position without a PhD. Is that usual in parts of Europe? That seems unthinkable in the US."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Casson

Depending on the field, it's not terribly unusual for an adjunct professor not to have a PhD in the US.
It happens in Australia, too. But it's not common.
Yay! I had a course with Prof. Matoušek: Topological methods in combinatorics and geometry. It a was mostly about using Borsuk Ulam theorem to prove other theorems in different areas. Can't remember a whole lot, except it was fascinating and beautiful.
Ah yeah and of course at least a bit of Borsuk Ulam. In my own words: "for every continuous function from the n-sphere to R^n, there exists a pair of antipodal points on that sphere that will map to the same point in R^n". Example in 1-D: in a heated a metal-ring with some heat-distribution on it, there are to points exactly opposite from each other which have the same temperature.
A thread from 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14129306
Thanks for kindly sharing this.

The Perfect Matchings and Determinants section which relates the perfect matchings of a graph with a determinant is interesting.