Background
Haken, Wolfgang was born on June 21, 1928 in Berlin. Son of Werner and Tilly (Wieneke) Haken. came to the United States, 1962.
mathematician university professor topologist
Haken, Wolfgang was born on June 21, 1928 in Berlin. Son of Werner and Tilly (Wieneke) Haken. came to the United States, 1962.
Doctor rerum naturalium, U. Kiel, Germany, 1953; Habilitation, U. Frankfurt, Germany, 1962.
They proved that any two-dimensional map, with certain limitations, can be filled in with four colors without any adjacent "countries" sharing the same color. Haken has introduced several important ideas, including Haken manifolds, Kneser–Haken finiteness, and an expansion of the work of Kneser into a theory of normal surfaces. Much of his work has an algorithmic aspect, and he is one of the influential figures in algorithmic topology.
One of his key contributions to this field is an algorithm to detect if a knot is unknotted. Haken is the father of six children. Wolfgang Haken is the cousin of Hermann Haken, a physicist well known for laser theory and Synergetics.
In 1978 Haken delivered an invited address at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Helsinki. Wolfgang Haken was a recipient of the 1979 Fulkerson Prize of the American Mathematical Society for his solution with Appel of the four-color problem.
Married Anna-Irmgard Freiin von Bredow, November 23, 1953. Children— Armin, Dorothea, Lippold, Agnes, Rudolf, Armgard.