Professor John Thompson
Born	October 13, 1932 Ottawa, Kansas
Nationality	USA
Field	mathematician
Institutions	University of Florida
Alma mater	University of Chicago Yale University
Academic advisor	Saunders MacLane
Notable students	R. L. Griess
Notable prizes	Fields Medal and Abel Prize

John Griggs Thompson (born October 13, 1932 in Ottawa, Kansas, USA) is a mathematician noted for his work in the field of finite groups. Events 54 - Nero ascends to the Roman throne 409 - Vandals and Alans crossed the Pyrenees Year 1932 ( MCMXXXII) was a Leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. Ottawa is a City situated along the Marais des Cygnes River in the central part of Franklin County, located in east-central Kansas, in the central The United States of America —commonly referred to as the A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and research is the field of Mathematics. The University of Florida ( Florida or UF) is a public land-grant, sea-grant, space-grant major Research The University of Chicago is a Private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. Saunders Mac Lane ( 4 August 1909, Taftville, Connecticut – 14 April 2005, San Francisco) was an American Robert L Griess is a mathematician working on Finite simple groups He constructed the Monster group using the Griess algebra. The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two three or four Mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical The Abel Prize is an international prize presented annually by the King of Norway to one or more outstanding Mathematicians The prize is named after Norwegian Events 54 - Nero ascends to the Roman throne 409 - Vandals and Alans crossed the Pyrenees Year 1932 ( MCMXXXII) was a Leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. Ottawa is a City situated along the Marais des Cygnes River in the central part of Franklin County, located in east-central Kansas, in the central The United States of America —commonly referred to as the A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and research is the field of Mathematics. In Mathematics, a finite group is a group which has finitely many elements He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1970 and the 2008 Abel Prize. The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two three or four Mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Year 1970 ( MCMLXX) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link shows full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common The Abel Prize is an international prize presented annually by the King of Norway to one or more outstanding Mathematicians The prize is named after Norwegian

Contents 1 Biography 2 Work 3 Further recognition 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

Biography

He received his B.A. from Yale University in 1955 and his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1959 under the supervision of Saunders Mac Lane. A doctorate is an Academic degree that indicates the highest level of academic achievement The University of Chicago is a Private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. Saunders Mac Lane ( 4 August 1909, Taftville, Connecticut – 14 April 2005, San Francisco) was an American After spending some time on the Mathematics faculty at the University of Chicago, he moved in 1970 to the Rouse Ball Professorship of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, England, and later moved to the Mathematics Department of the University of Florida as a Graduate Research Professor. Walter William Rouse Ball ( 14 August 1850 – 4 April 1925) was a British Mathematician, Lawyer and a fellow The University of Cambridge (often Cambridge University) located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland The University of Florida ( Florida or UF) is a public land-grant, sea-grant, space-grant major Research He is currently a Professor Emeritus of Pure Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and professor of mathematics at the University of Florida. The meaning of the word professor ( Latin: professor, person who professes to be an expert in some art or science teacher of highest rank) varies Broadly speaking pure mathematics is Mathematics motivated entirely for reasons other than application The meaning of the word professor ( Latin: professor, person who professes to be an expert in some art or science teacher of highest rank) varies Mathematics is the body of Knowledge and Academic discipline that studies such concepts as Quantity, Structure, Space and He received the Abel Prize 2008 together with Jacques Tits. The Abel Prize is an international prize presented annually by the King of Norway to one or more outstanding Mathematicians The prize is named after Norwegian Jacques Tits (born August 12, 1930 in Uccle) is a French (and formerly Belgian) Mathematician. ^[1]

Work

Thompson's doctoral thesis already introduced powerful and innovative techniques, and included the solution of a problem in Finite group theory which had stood for around sixty years, the nilpotency of Frobenius kernels. In Mathematics, a finite group is a group which has finitely many elements In Group theory, a nilpotent group is a group having a special property that makes it "almost" abelian, through repeated application of the In Mathematics, a Frobenius group is a transitive Permutation group on a Finite set, such that no non-trivial elementfixes more than one point At the time, this achievement was noted in The New York Times^[2], (though, unfortunately, his University affiliation was stated incorrectly there).

Thompson became a key figure in the progress toward the classification of finite simple groups. The classification of the finite simple groups, also called the enormous theorem is believed to classify all finite simple groups. In 1963, he and Walter Feit proved that all nonabelian finite simple groups are of even order (the Odd Order Paper, filling a whole issue of the Pacific Journal of Mathematics). Walter Feit ( October 26[[ 930]] - July 29[[ 004]] was a Mathematician who worked in Finite group theory and Representation theory. An abelian group, also called a commutative group, is a group satisfying the additional requirement that the product of elements does not depend on their order (the SIMPLE Group Limited is a conglomeration of separately run companies that each specialised in a particular area of Tax Planning In Group theory, a branch of Mathematics, the term order is used in two closely related senses the order of a group is In Mathematics, the Feit–Thompson theorem, or odd order theorem, states that every finite group of odd order is solvable. The Pacific Journal of Mathematics (ISSN 0030-8730 is a Mathematics research journal supported by a number of American Asian and Australian universities and research institutes This work was recognised by the award of the 1965 Cole Prize in Algebra of the American Mathematical Society. The Frank Nelson Cole Prize, or Cole Prize for short is one of two Prizes awarded to Mathematicians by the American Mathematical Society, one The American Mathematical Society (AMS is an association of professional Mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship which His monumental N-group paper classified all finite simple groups for which the normalizer of every non-identity solvable subgroup is solvable. In Group theory, the centralizer and normalizer of a Subset S of a group G are Subgroups of G which In the history of Mathematics, the origins of Group theory lie in the search for a proof of the general unsolvability of Quintic and higher equations finally In Group theory, given a group G under a Binary operation * we say that some Subset H of G is a subgroup of This included, as a by-product, the classification of all minimal finite simple groups (those for which every proper subgroup is solvable). This work had great influence on later developments in the classification of finite simple groups, and was quoted in the citation by Richard Brauer for the award of Thompson's Fields Medal in 1970 (Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Nice, France, 1970). Richard Dagobert Brauer ( February 10, 1901 &ndash April 17, 1977) was a leading German and American Mathematician The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM is the largest congress in the Mathematics community Nice (nis Niçard Occitan: Niça norm or Nissa, Italian: Nizza or Nizza Marittima, Greek This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics.

The Thompson group Th is one of the 26 sporadic finite simple groups. In the Mathematical field of Group theory, the Thompson group Th (found by John G Thompson also made major contributions to the inverse Galois problem. In Mathematics, the inverse Galois problem concerns whether or not every Finite group appears as the Galois group of some Galois extension of He found a criterion for a finite group to be a Galois group, that in particular implies that the monster simple group is a Galois group. In Mathematics, a Galois group is a group associated with a certain type of Field extension. In the Mathematical field of Group theory, the Monster group M or F 1 (also known as the Fischer-Griess Monster or the Friendly Giant

Further recognition

In 1971, Thompson was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS is a corporation in the United States whose members serve Pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science In 1982, he was awarded the Senior Berwick Prize of the London Mathematical Society, and in 1988, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Science from the University of Oxford. The London Mathematical Society ( LMS) is the leading mathematical society in England. DSc ScD SD, or DrSc are common abbreviations for the Latin Scientiæ Doctor, meaning Doctor of Science. The University of Oxford (informally "Oxford University" or simply "Oxford" located in the city of Oxford, Oxfordshire, England is the Thompson also received the Wolf Prize in 1992, and was awarded the United States National Medal of Science in 2000. The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in Science and Engineering who have made important He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (United Kingdom), and a recipient of its Sylvester Medal. The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as The Royal Society, is a Learned society for science that was founded in 1660 The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located The Sylvester Medal is a bronze medal awarded every three years by the Royal Society for the encouragement of mathematical research

See also

• Feit–Thompson theorem
• Thompson subgroup
• McKay-Thompson series

References

External links

• O'Connor, John J. & Robertson, Edmund F. , “John G. Thompson”, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive 
• John G. Thompson at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• List of mathematical articles by John G. Thompson
• Biography from the Abel Prize senter

The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive is an award-winning website maintained by John J The Mathematics Genealogy Project is a web-based Database that gives an Academic genealogy based on Dissertation supervision relations

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