Obituaries Australia

Esther and George Szekeres, n.d.

Esther Szekeres (1910—2005), mathematician, was born in Budapest, Hungary, on February 20, 1910, daughter of Ignaz Klein. This was in a period and a country that gave birth to many remarkable minds, but the country became increasingly antisemitic after the First World War. Esther focussed on mathematics and physics in high school; there was only one place in mathematics and one for physics open to Jewish students from her school at university, and her school friend Marta Wachsberger entered the mathematics course while Esther studied physics. She was awarded a diploma to teach mathematics in secondary schools in 1933.

At university, Esther was one of a group of very talented students who met at the statue of "Anonymous" in Budapest's Liget Park to discuss mathematics. Esther proposed a problem which incorporated both combinatorial and geometric aspects, and was to become a cornerstone of a new type of mathematics. George Szekeres, another member of the group, solved Esther's problem, and an improved version of his solution was published in 1935 by Paul Erdős and George Szekeres. Erdős, one of the most unusual and prolific mathematicians of the 20th Century, dubbed the problem "the Happy Ending Problem", since George and Esther married on 13 June, 1937.

In late 1938, George and Esther left Hungary for Shanghai, China, where George worked for a year in an American leather factory, until it closed. While China was not overtly antisemitic, and indeed many Jews escaped there in the late 1930s, Shanghai was under Japanese occupation, and as the links between Japan and Nazi Germany became stronger, and the Second World War slowly moved towards its close, Shanghai too became more and more dangerous, and Esther and George and their son Peter, who was born in 1940, risked death by starvation or bombing on many occasions.

After the end of the War, things were somewhat better, although China was in the throes of civil war, as the Communists and Nationalists fought for control. So when George took up a position as lecturer at the University of Adelaide in June 1948, where the husband George Sved of Esther’s old school friend Marta was already working, they finally managed to live for the first time far away from both the threat of violent persecution and the clouds of war. In Adelaide, Esther’s daughter Judy was born in 1954.

The Szekeres family moved to Sydney in 1964, when George took up the post of foundation professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of New South Wales. This was the time of the notorious Bogle—Chandler murders, and they were able to buy the house of one of the victims in Turramurra at a bargain price, as its history was too daunting to most prospective buyers. This was on a large block, with many native trees and a small creek, and was a haven for birds and animals. The Szekeres family were very happy there. They much preferred the safe tranquility of Australia to the dangerous stimulation of Budapest, though Esther sometimes prepared Hungarian cakes to fill a culinary void. They entertained colleagues from at least three universities in Sydney and the international mathematical community regularly.

However, the house was several kilometres from the nearest shops, and after George lost his driving licence in 2004, it became impracticable to live there, and Esther and George moved back to Adelaide, to be near to their children. The stress of the move led to Esther’s health precipitating, and she moved almost immediately to the Wynwood Nursing Home; after nearly a year, George joined her there, and they both died on August 28, 2005, within half an hour of each other.

In Adelaide, Esther had done some part-time mathematics teaching at the University of Adelaide, and while in Sydney, she taught mathematics at the University of Sydney for a while, and then at Macquarie University for many years. Ross Street recalls that when he was a student at the University of Sydney, she was always available to help students. At Macquarie, Ross Street (newly appointed to a lecturer position and subsequently a professor emeritus), Esther and others ran geometry courses by distance-learning aimed at high school teachers, who would come (often from the country) for intensive weekends and longer periods during the school holidays. In 1990, Macquarie awarded Esther Szekeres an honorary doctorate in recognition of her many generous educational contributions.

Possibly Esther’s biggest contribution to mathematics in Australia was to the after-school classes which she, together with Geoff Ball and Terry Gagen from the University of Sydney, and occasional help from others, ran at Mercy College Chatswood, for interested students, between 1983 and 2004. At these classes students would be presented with problems to challenge their ingenuity and develop their logical reasoning and problem-solving skills; the half dozen or so weekly problems always contained two of Esther's geometrical problems, which were unique and challenging, but at the same time accessible to the students. No problems required calculus of any kind. Geometry à la Euclid had given students an understanding of mathematical proof for centuries and she knew it still would do so. In addition, they were exposed to talks by illustrious exponents of the mathematical sciences, including Oliver Lancaster, one of the statisticians who identified the link between melanoma and latitude and the link between rubella and damage to foetuses, and Paul Erdős. Many of the Chatswood students have pleasant memories of these classes, and some went on to study mathematics at university.

Esther also gave a wonderful course of more challenging geometrical problems at the National Mathematics Summer School for more senior students in the 1990s which was as effective as her Chatswood classes.In 1993, Esther Szekeres was honoured with the BH Neumann Award of the Australian Mathematics Trust to celebrate her activity promoting mathematics.