Israeli Mathematician Solves 38-Year-Old Math Problem by Hillel Fendel www.israelnationalnews.com/static/pictures/resized/136-106/23/23635.jpg" alt="" /> Prof. Avraham Trahtman of Bar Ilan University has solved an internationally famous math problem known as the Road Coloring Conjecture. From Night Guard to Top Professor Prof. Trahtman, 63, immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union some 15 years ago. He worked at first as a security guard and in house cleaning, and later took his rightful place as a staff member on the Mathematics Faculty at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan. The math problem solved by Prof. Trahtman, a resident of southern Jerusalem, is known as the Road Coloring Conjecture. Its basic format is essentially unintelligible to non-mathematicians, but can be roughly translated into real life by asking: "Is there a map of one-way streets, all colored in one of two colors, for which a set of directions to a certain point can be given that would be correct no matter where one started?" The problem was originally presented in1970 by Israeli mathematician Binyamin Weiss and two colleagues. It evoked noticeable interest among specialists in graph theory, deterministic automata and symbolic dynamics, though remained unsolved - until Prof. Trahtman proposed his solution this past September. Its publication in The Israeli Journal of Mathematics caused a stir in the mathematical world, and "has brought great pride to our university and the State of Israel," said Bar Ilan President Prof. Moshe Kaveh.
It's interesting that he was not able to solve the problem while he lived in Russia, but only after he left. However, that said, I suspect those conditions as they existed 15 years ago when he left are no longer present in Russia today. We've see that in many situations in the past. Marie Curie left Poland for France, where she engaged in her discoveries. Enrico Fermi left Italy for the US, where he invented the nuclear reactor. And on and on. I suspect that having a change in perspective is good for the mind!
That's one of those NP-hard problems, that can't be computed in polynomial time? (as they say in the land of algorithms)
This is nonsense. It would be more fair if you compare someone who left with someone who did not leave. For example, Gamow and Landau. In any case many many scientists move frequently to get experience and learn from 'big shots', regardless of where they end up eventually.