Zsolt Baranyai

Zsolt Baranyai (23 June 1948 to 6 April 1978) was a Hungarian mathematician known for his work in combinatorics, born in Budapest. He graduated from Fazekas High School, where he was a classmate of László Lovász, Miklós Laczkovich and Lajos Pósa, studied mathematics at Eötvös Loránd University, and became a lecturer in the Analysis Department. He earned his Ph.D. in 1975 and was posthumously awarded the Candidate degree of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1978. Baranyai is best known for his theorem on the decompositions of complete hypergraphs, which solved a long-standing open problem. He was also a professional musician who played the recorder, and he died in a car accident after a concert while touring Hungary with the Bakfark Consort.