George Edwin Collins | |
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Born |
Stuart, Iowa, U.S. | January 10, 1928
Died | November 21, 2017
Madison, Wisconsin, U.S. | (aged 89)
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Cornell University |
Known for | Garbage collection |
Scientific career | |
Institutions | University of Wisconsin–Madison, Ohio State University, RISC-Linz, Delaware University, North Carolina State University |
Doctoral advisor | J. Barkley Rosser |
Doctoral students | Ellis Horowitz |
George E. Collins (January 10, 1928 in Stuart, Iowa – November 21, 2017 in Madison, Wisconsin) [1] was an American mathematician and computer scientist. He is the inventor of garbage collection by reference counting [G60] [2] and of the method of quantifier elimination by cylindrical algebraic decomposition. [G75] [3]
He received his PhD from Cornell University in 1955. [4] He worked at IBM, the University of Wisconsin–Madison (1966–1986) Ohio State University, RISC-Linz, Delaware University, and North Carolina State University. [1]
G60. | George E. Collins: A Method for Overlapping and Erasure of Lists, Commun. ACM, volume 3, number 12, 1960.
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G75. | George E. Collins: Quantifier elimination for the elementary theory of real closed fields by cylindrical algebraic decomposition, Second GI Conf. Automata Theory and Formal Languages, Springer LNCS 33, 1975.
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The first, though cumbersome and error-prone, reference counting technique was described by H. Gelertner, J.R. Hansen, and C.L. Gerberich [Gelernter et al, 1960] but the standard reference counting algorithm is due to George Collins [Collins, 1960].
A symposium on Quantifier Elimination and Cylindrical Algebraic Decomposition was held October 6–8, 1993 ... the symposium celebrated the 20th anniversary of George Collins' discovery of Cylindrical Algebraic Decomposition (CAD) as a method for Quantifier Elimination (QE) for the elementary theory of real closed fields (Collins 1973b), and was devoted to the many advances in this subject since Collins' discovery.