Edward W. Formanek Explained

Edward William Formanek (born May 6, 1942)^[1] is an American mathematician and chess player. He is a professor emeritus of mathematics at Pennsylvania State University,^{[2] [3]} and a FIDE International Master in chess.^[4]

Mathematical career

Formanek earned his Ph.D. in 1970 from Rice University, under the supervision of Stephen M. Gersten.^[5] He joined the Penn State faculty in 1978, and retired in 2009.^[3]

In 1972, Formanek was one of two mathematicians to independently discover the central polynomials, which have applications to polynomial identity rings.^[6] With Vesselin Drensky, Formanek is the author of the book Polynomial Identity Rings (Birkhäuser, 2004).^[7]

In 2012, he became one of the inaugural fellows of the American Mathematical Society.^{[2] [8]}

Chess career

Formanek became a FIDE International Master in 1977.^[1]

He has won the Pennsylvania State Championship five times, in 1984, 1993, 1997, 1998, and 2004.^[9] However, his most famous result from this series may be in 1988, when he led the tournament going into the last round but was defeated by computer program HiTech,^[10] becoming the first IM to lose a game to a computer.^[11] Later the same year HiTech would also defeat grandmaster Arnold Denker.^[11]

Notes and References

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4. http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2001640 Player profile
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8. https://www.ams.org/profession/fellows-list List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
9. http://www.pscfchess.org/results/ Pennsylvania State Championships Results
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