George E. Collins
American mathematician and computer scientist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
George E. Collins (born on January 10, 1928 in Stuart, Iowa – and died on 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]
BornJanuary 10, 1928
Stuart, Iowa, U.S.
DiedNovember 21, 2017 (aged 89)
Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.
AlmamaterCornell University
George Edwin Collins | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 10, 1928 Stuart, Iowa, U.S. |
| Died | November 21, 2017 (aged 89) Madison, Wisconsin, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Cornell University |
| Known for | Garbage collection (computer science) |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | University of Wisconsin–Madison, Ohio State University, RISC-Linz, University of Delaware, North Carolina State University |
| Doctoral advisor | J. Barkley Rosser |
| Doctoral students | Ellis Horowitz David Musser |
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, University of Delaware, and North Carolina State University.[1]
Selected publications
| G60. | George E. Collins: A Method for Overlapping and Erasure of Lists, Commun. ACM, volume 3, number 12, 1960. |
| 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. |
