Ruth Aaronson Bari
Encyclopedia
Graph theory
In mathematics and computer science, graph theory is the study of graphs, mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects from a certain collection. A "graph" in this context refers to a collection of vertices or 'nodes' and a collection of edges that connect pairs of...
and homomorphism
Homomorphism
In abstract algebra, a homomorphism is a structure-preserving map between two algebraic structures . The word homomorphism comes from the Greek language: ὁμός meaning "same" and μορφή meaning "shape".- Definition :The definition of homomorphism depends on the type of algebraic structure under...
s. The daughter of Polish-Jewish immigrants to the U.S., she was a professor at George Washington University
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
beginning in 1966. She was the mother of environmental activist Judi Bari
Judi Bari
Judi Bari was an American environmentalist and labor leader, a feminist, and the principal organizer of Earth First! campaigns against logging in the ancient redwood forests of Northern California in the 1980s and '90...
, science reporter Gina Kolata
Gina Kolata
Gina Bari Kolata is a science journalist for The New York Times. Her sister was environmental activist Judi Bari, and her mother was mathematician Ruth Aaronson Bari....
and art historian Martha Bari.
Career
Bari grew up in Brooklyn and attended Brooklyn CollegeBrooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...
, earning her bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1939. She earned her MA at Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
in 1943, but had originally enrolled in the doctoral program. When the university suggested that women in the graduate program should give up their fellowships so that men returning from WWII could study, Bari acceded. After marrying Arthur Bari she spent the next two decades devoted to family. She returned to Johns Hopkins, where she completed her dissertation on "absolute reducibility of maps of at most 19 regions" in 1966 at the age of 47.
Bari’s dissertation explored chromatic polynomial
Chromatic polynomial
The chromatic polynomial is a polynomial studied in algebraic graph theory, a branch of mathematics. It counts the number of graph colorings as a function of the number of colors and was originally defined by George David Birkhoff to attack the four color problem. It was generalised to the Tutte...
s and the Birkhoff-Lewis conjecture. She determined that “Because of the fact that all other cubic maps with fewer than 20 regions contain at least one absolutely reducible configuration, it follows that the Birkhoff-Lewis conjecture holds for all maps with fewer than 20 regions.” Her Ph.D. advisor was Daniel Lewis, Jr. After receiving her degree, renowned mathematician William Tutte invited Bari to spend two weeks lecturing on her work in Canada at the University of Waterloo
University of Waterloo
The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...
. Bari's work in the areas of graph theory and homomorphisms—and especially that of chromatic polynomials—has been recognized as influential. In 1976, two professors relied on computer work to solve the perennial problem of Bari’s dissertation, involving the four-color conjecture. When her daughter, Dr. Martha Bari, an art historian at Hood College
Hood College
Hood College is a co-educational liberal arts college located in Frederick, Maryland. The college serves approximately 1,050 graduate students and more than 1,400 undergraduate students.-Early History :...
, asked her if she felt cheated by the technological solution, Bari replied, “I’m just grateful that it was solved within my lifetime and that I had the privilege to witness it.”
During her teaching career, Bari participated in a class-action lawsuit against George Washington University, which protested inequalities in promotion and pay for female faculty members. The protests were successful, and Bari retired at the legally mandated age of 70 in 1988 with the distinction of professor emeritus.
Community and Family Life
Bari was active in the Washington, DC community. In the early 1970s, Bari used a grant from the National Science FoundationNational Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
to start a master’s degree program in teaching mathematics. She felt that math teachers in DC public schools were not as well prepared as they needed to be . Her children were also influential in their fields. Daughter Gina Kolata
Gina Kolata
Gina Bari Kolata is a science journalist for The New York Times. Her sister was environmental activist Judi Bari, and her mother was mathematician Ruth Aaronson Bari....
is a mathematical and science journalist for the New York Times, and daughter Judi Bari
Judi Bari
Judi Bari was an American environmentalist and labor leader, a feminist, and the principal organizer of Earth First! campaigns against logging in the ancient redwood forests of Northern California in the 1980s and '90...
(1949 – 1997) was a leading environmental activist.
After 64 years of marriage to her husband, Arthur, three daughters, and four grandchildren, Bari died August 25, 2005, at National Lutheran Home in Rockville. She had lived in Silver Spring since 1963 and was 87 years old at the time of her death.
External links
- "Ruth Aaronson Bari", Biographies of Women Mathematicians, Agnes Scott CollegeAgnes Scott CollegeAgnes Scott College is a private undergraduate college in the United States. Agnes Scott's campus lies in downtown Decatur, Georgia, nestled inside the perimeter of the bustling metro-Atlanta area....
- "Dr. Ruth Aaronson Bari, 87, Dies; Professor of Mathematics at GWU", Washington Post, August 30, 2005.
- “Ruth Aaronson Bari.” The Mathematics Genealogy Project.