Alfréd Rényi (March 20, 1921 – February 1, 1970) was a Hungarian mathematician who made contributions in combinatorics and graph theory but mostly in probability theory.

He proved, using the large sieve, that there is a number $K$ such that every even number is the sum of a prime number and a number that can be written as the product of at most $K$ primes.

In information theory, he introduced the spectrum of Rényi entropies of order α, giving an important generalisation of the Shannon entropy and the Kullback-Leibler divergence. The Rényi entropies give a spectrum of useful diversity indices, and lead to a spectrum of fractal dimensions.

He founded the Mathematical Institute in Budapest. He wrote 32 joint papers with Paul Erdős Alfréd Rényi is probably the source of the quote: [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.", which is generally ascribed to Paul Erdős.

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1921 births | 1970 deaths | 20th century mathematicians | Number theorists | Combinatorists | Graph theorists | Probability theorists | Hungarian mathematicians | Erdős number 1

Alfréd Rényi | Rényi Alfréd | Alfréd_Rényi