Stephen D. Smith

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Stephen D. Smith (born June 11, 1948 in Houston , Texas ) is an American mathematician who deals with finite groups .

Smith grew up in South Texas and began studying at St. Mary's University in San Antonio in 1965 . In 1967 he went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he got his bachelor's degree in mathematics and literature in 1970 . He then went to the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar , where he obtained a master’s degree in 1971 and his doctorate with Graham Higman in 1973 ( Sylow subgroups of index 2 in their normalizers ). His dissertation won the Oxford Senior Mathematical Prize . As a post-doctoral student , he was a Bateman Instructor at Caltech from 1973 . In 1975 he became assistant professor , in 1979 associate professor and in 1984 professor at the University of Chicago . From 1996 to 1998 he was the head of the mathematics faculty there ( acting head ) and from 1985/86 he organized the main program Computers in Mathematics . In 2007 he became Professor Emeritus. He was visiting professor in Giessen , Caltech, the University of Notre Dame , All Souls College in Oxford and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign .

He was involved in the classification program of finite simple groups and, within the framework of this program, with Michael Aschbacher, filled a final gap in the evidence ( concerning quasi-thin groups , their joint monograph on this from 2004 had around 1300 pages).

For the book Classification of finite simple groups: groups of characteristic 2-type from 2011 he won the Leroy P. Steele Prize with Aschbacher, Ronald Solomon and Richard Lyons in 2012 . The book is intended as a continuation of a book by Daniel Gorenstein from 1983 and gives an overview (and an update compared to Gorenstein's presentation from 1983) of the classification project, presented for a broader mathematical audience of non-specialists using the example of groups of characteristic 2.

He is a fellow of the American Mathematical Society .

He has been married to Judith L. Baxter since 1980 and has two adult stepsons.

Fonts

  • with Michael Aschbacher : The classification of quasithin groups. American Mathematical Society, Providence RI 2004;
    • Volume 1: Structure of strongly quasithin K-groups (= Mathematical Surveys and Monographs. 111). 2004, ISBN 0-8218-3410-X ;
    • Volume 2: Main theorems. The classification of simple QTKE groups (= Mathematical Surveys and Monographs. 112). 2004, ISBN 0-8218-3411-8 .
  • with David J. Benson: Classifying spaces of sporadic groups (= Mathematical Surveys and Monographs. 147). American Mathematical Society, Providence RI 2008, ISBN 978-0-8218-4474-8 .
  • with Michael Aschbacher, Richard Lyons , Ronald Solomon : The classification of finite simple groups. Groups of characteristic 2 type (= Mathematical Surveys and Monographs. 172). American Mathematical Society, Providence RI 2011, ISBN 978-0-8218-5336-8 .
  • Subgroup complexes (= Mathematical Surveys and Monographs. 179). American Mathematical Society, Providence RI 2011, ISBN 978-0-8218-0501-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mathematics Genealogy Project
personal data
SURNAME Smith, Stephen D.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH June 11, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Houston , Texas