Miroslav Fiedler

Miroslav Fiedler (7 April 1926 – 20 November 2015) was a Czech mathematician known for his contributions to linear algebra, graph theory and algebraic graph theory.

Miroslav Fiedler
Born	7 April 1926 Prague, Czechoslovakia[1]
Died	20 November 2015(2015-11-20) (aged 89)
Alma mater	Charles University, Prague
Scientific career
Fields	linear algebra[2] graph theory Euclidean geometry
Institutions	Institute of Computer Science, The Czech Academy of Sciences
Website	www.cs.cas.cz/fiedler/

His article, "Algebraic Connectivity of Graphs", published in the Czechoslovak Math Journal in 1973, established the use of the eigenvalues of the Laplacian matrix of a graph to create tools for measuring algebraic connectivity in algebraic graph theory.^[3] Fiedler is honored by the Fiedler eigenvalue (the second smallest eigenvalue of the graph Laplacian), with its associated Fiedler eigenvector, as the names for the quantities that characterize algebraic connectivity. Since Fiedler's original contribution, this structure has become essential to large areas of research in network theory, flocking, distributed control, clustering, multi-robot applications and image segmentation.^[4]