John Adrian Bondy (born 1944 in London) is a retired English mathematician, known for his work in combinatorics and graph theory.
John Adrian Bondy | |
---|---|
Born | 1944 London, England |
Nationality | British, Canadian |
Alma mater | University of Oxford |
Occupation | Professor |
Known for | Bondy's theorem Bondy–Chvátal theorem |
Scientific career | |
Fields | |
Institutions | |
Thesis | Some uniqueness theorems in graph theory (1968) |
Doctoral advisor | Dominic Welsh[1] |
Bondy received his Ph.D. in graph theory from the University of Oxford in 1969. His advisor was Dominic Welsh.[1] Between 1969 and 1994, Bondy was Professor of Graph Theory at the University of Waterloo in Canada, and then, until his retirement, at Université Lyon 1 in France.[2] From 1976, he was managing editor, and, between 1979 and 2004, co-editor-in-chief (together with U. S. R. Murty) of Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B.[3] Throughout his career, Bondy has (co-)authored over 100 publications[2][4] with 51 co-authors,[5] including the widely influential textbook Graph Theory with Applications (with U. S. R. Murty), and supervised 12 Ph.D. students.[1] His Erdős number is 1.[6]
Bondy was dismissed from his tenured position at the University of Waterloo in 1995, after 25 years in which he had been a major contributor to the renown of the University's Department of Combinatorics and Optimization.[7] The reasons for his dismissal centered on "Bondy's acceptance of a teaching post in France, and the acceptability of someone who is on UW's faculty payroll holding a full-time job elsewhere."[8] Protesting the decision, Paul Erdős returned his honorary doctorate to the University of Waterloo,[9] and Vašek Chvátal resigned from his position of Adjunct Professor at the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization.[10]
Bondy has a passion for photography, having taken pictures since his childhood. In the 1980s, he regularly exhibited his work, most notably at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery in Kitchener, Ontario. In 2010, Bondy founded the non-profit association Mind's Eye[11] with the aim "to reflect upon the conceptual links between mathematics and photography."[12] In 2012, he opened a photo gallery with the same name on the Rue Saint-Jacques, Paris. Between 2012 and 2022, Mind's Eye / Galerie Adrian Bondy has hosted 42 exhibitions with works of 27 artists, including John Claridge and Jean Dréville.[13]
With a heavy heart I feel that I have to sever my connections with the University of Waterloo, including resigning my honorary degree which I received from the University in 1981 (which caused me great pleasure). I was very upset by the treatment of Professor Adrian Bondy. I do not maintain that Professor Bondy was innocent, but in view of his accomplishments and distinguished services to the University I feel that 'justice should be tempered with mercy.'