Talk:Ronald Graham

Untitled
Hello. Was Ronald Graham listed on Votes for deletion before you deleted him? It's just that I didn't see him there... You are familiar with the deletion policy, aren't you? Just checking... -- Oliver P. 15:42 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)
 * Ronald Graham was not listed on Votes for deletion. The article was a mere link to a webpage that is "still under construction" and gives very little information about Graham. I am familiar with the deletion policy, and I deemed this article to fall under rule #6: "delete pages that simply will never become encyclopedia articles." Kingturtle 16:02 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply. If the page consisted only of a link, then I would consider it to be fair game for immediate deletion, under the "no useful content" rule. Guideline no. 6 doesn't apply, though. As the guideline clarifies, it is talking about "completely idiosyncratic non-topics". Ronald Graham is a valid topic - the man is a real mathematician, and Graham's number is named after him, for example - and so there will be an article on him one day. In fact, I might make a start on it right now. :) -- Oliver P. 17:25 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)
 * To be honest, in reference to the website this article pointed to, it seemed like a joke. that page is so low-key that i thought it was JOKING when it said the Graham's number was named after *this* graham. well, you live, you learn :) Kingturtle 22:43 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Another Graham
If you want to open a new thread do that and go learn how to create a new page with the same name.

Do not delete important already there, just because you have something else to add!

More Recent Picture??
Is there a more recent picture of him?? He looks very young for a 72 year old in those pictures. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.108.202.22 (talk) 02:06, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Now he looks very young for a 76-year-old :-) If you GIS him you can see that there are some newer pictures out there, but they're all covered by copyright. Perhaps that China Symposium could be persuaded to grant the rights to their photo? Your Lord and Master (talk) 00:45, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

There's no way the lead image is from the 1960's
Firstly, the quality of the image looks way too high. Secondly, he's wearing a digital watch; they only came into prevalence in the mid-to-late 70's. Thirdly, the reference for that date is some document which seems to just guess at dates (the author also mistyped 1960's as 1060's, somehow). I'm removing the caption, but if anyone can find a more accurate date or year, feel free... -- Pingumeister(talk) 18:08, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

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Death Rumours
There are rumours going around that Ron Graham has died. The closest thing to a source I can find is this reddit post, though I'm not sure whether Template:Recent death can be applied because of this. -- GautamC (talk) 17:17, 7 July 2020 (UTC)


 * We don't do rumours. Needs at least one WP:RS before anything can be included in the article. Lard Almighty (talk) 16:53, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I got an email about this from the Combinatorial Mathematics Society of Australasia but it was sourced to Wikipedia so WP:CIRCULAR. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:56, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Noted, thank you. -- GautamC (talk) 17:22, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I received (perhaps the same) email from Combinatorial Mathematics Society of Australasia. It links to Wikipedia for a brief biography, not as a source for Ron's death. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.172.188.111 (talk) 17:29, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Announcement on Discrete Mathematics SIAG mailing list http://lists.siam.org/pipermail/siam-dm/2020-July/000172.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.34.166.100 (talk) 18:13, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Not sufficient to include on Wikipedia. As noted, some of these "announcements" are based on the initial unsourced addition to Wikipedia. Lard Almighty (talk) 19:10, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Apologies. The initial talk-page addition was made by me - the announcement was made by the Dean of the UCSD CSE dept. on behalf of Prof. Fan Chung, Prof. Graham's wife, and Prof. Butler via the UCSD CSE departmental mailinglist.
 * If there's a publicly viewable copy of that announcement, it would probably be sufficient. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:41, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Just saw an update to his page at MAA (Mathematical Association of America) - link here. Kaisertalk (talk) 19:13, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I saw that too, then went to their Twitter page and eventually concluded that it was CIRCULAR also, like the rest of what's out there that I could find (as of about 1830 UTC). Like someone else said on Twitter, we need to be patient and wait for someone like the San Diego UT (who didn't publish it in today's print paper). —[ Alan M 1  (talk) ]— 19:42, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Agree, didn't mean to suggest anything otherwise. RIP if true. His book was course material in Grad school. Kaisertalk (talk) 19:47, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

The person who made the Reddit thread claims to be a close family friend. However, social media posts generally aren't considered reliable sources. Ixfd64 (talk) 20:15, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Ronald Graham has sadly died yesterday on July 6th, 2020. He was 84 years old. The AMS has an article on him, proving the rumors are true. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A601:AC59:2900:90DA:EB62:FAD1:2145 (talk) 22:23, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to find that AMS obit reliable. Comments? —[ Alan M 1  (talk) ]— 22:31, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * ... and it's apparently protected now. ? —[ Alan M 1  (talk) ]— 22:35, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Unprotected. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:19, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Updated. —[ Alan M 1  (talk) ]— 23:34, 7 July 2020 (UTC)


 * The AMS is definitely a reliable source in my opinion. Ixfd64 (talk) 00:41, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Genealogy of AT&T Labs
I struck the parenthetical comment from "Bell Labs and (as it became) AT&T Labs". At the divestiture of Lucent Technologies, AT&T Bell Labs split into Bell Labs in Lucent and AT&T Labs in AT&T. Whether the flag of Bell Labs was passed with the name or with the owner is a matter of opinion. If you think it's important to indicate a relationship, AT&T Labs could be identified as "offshoot" or "descendant" of Bell Labs. Mdmi (talk) 03:26, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Wives
According to Prof. Graham has four wives. However, the article specifies only one wife. Should I change it? --- ProfPizza (talk) 21:42, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * "had", not "has". But also only one of his wives (Fan Chung) is notable.  Per its documentation, the infobox entry "spouse(s)" is for links to articles about notable spouses.  So that strongly suggests the answer is "no".  (An earlier wife is mentioned in the body of the article.) --JBL (talk) 21:55, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Agree. The article is ok as is, clearly stating that he was married before Fan and listing only Fan (as the only notable spouse) in the infobox. I'm not convinced the "fourth wife" phrasing of the Guardian link is enough to say definitively that he was married four times, without more verifiable detail on to whom and when. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:59, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes; I haven't seen this specific factoid anywhere else (not that I've been looking hard for it or anything), so it also seems possible that it's an error by the Guardian. --JBL (talk) 22:26, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay. Agreed! Thanks for replying. -- ProfPizza (talk) 23:22, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I think the Guardian is just in error here. Paul Hoffman had a lot of conversations with Graham for his book on Erdős, and it has some biographical material on Graham too. According to that book (p. 152), Nancy Young was his second wife, not his first as the Guardian has it. The book mentions only two wives before his marriage with Chung in 1983. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:41, 23 April 2021 (UTC)