Thorold Gosset

John Herbert de Paz Thorold Gosset (born October 16, 1869 in Thames Ditton , Surrey , England , † 1962 ) was a British amateur mathematician and lawyer who dealt with polytopes . His main occupation was a lawyer.

Live and act

Gosset studied predominantly classical languages and was from 1888 at Pembroke College of Cambridge University and then law. In 1895 he was admitted to the bar ( called to the bar ) and received a law degree in 1896. During a time when he had no clients (according to HSM Coxeter ) he dealt with regular polyhedra in arbitrary dimensions (although his discoveries had already been made by others) and then with semi-regular polyhedra. He classified semi-regular polyhedra in four and more dimensions and wrote an essay about it, which he sent to the editor of the Messenger of Mathematics, James W. Glaisher . This showed it to Alfred North Whitehead and William Burnside , but only a summary was published in 1897. Burnside admitted to having read only half and did not recognize the full meaning of Gosset's essay (Coxeter).

His results were rediscovered by Emanuel Lodewijk Elte (1912) in the Netherlands and by Coxeter. Coxeter named three semi-regular polytopes in 6 ( ), 7 ( ) and 8 dimensions ( ) after Gosset (their corners are related to the roots of the exceptional Lie groups E6, E7, E8). The Gosset graph (which is related to) is named after him. He also dealt with the higher dimensional generalization of Descartes' theorem . ${\ displaystyle 2_ {21}}$ ${\ displaystyle 2_ {21}}$ ${\ displaystyle 4_ {21}}$ ${\ displaystyle 3_ {21}}$

Gosset continued his legal career and wrote, among other things, a book on real estate law.

Fonts

On regular and semi-regular figures in space of n dimensions . In: Messenger of Mathematics / NS , Vol. 29 (1900), pp. 43-48.
with William Howland Jackson: Investigation of title. Being a practical treatise and alphabetical digest of the law connected with the title to land, with precedents of requisitions . 6th edition. Stevens Books, London 1950 (EA London 1898).

literature

HSM Coxeter : Regular Polytopes . Dover Publ., New York 1973, p. 164, ISBN 0-486-61480-8 .

Individual evidence

^ Gosset, John Herbert de Paz Thorold . In: John Archibald Venn (Ed.): Alumni Cantabrigienses . A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900. Part 2: From 1752 to 1900 , Volume 3 : Gabb – Justamond . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1947, pp. 98 ( venn.lib.cam.ac.uk Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
^ Gosset Graph at Mathworld .

personal data
SURNAME	Gosset, Thorold
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Gosset, John Herbert de Paz Thorold (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	British mathematician and lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH	October 16, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH	Thames Ditton , Surrey , England
DATE OF DEATH	1962

[1] Gosset, John Herbert de Paz Thorold . In: John Archibald Venn (Ed.): Alumni Cantabrigienses . A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900. Part 2: From 1752 to 1900 , Volume 3 : Gabb – Justamond . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1947, pp. 98 ( venn.lib.cam.ac.uk Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).

[2] Gosset Graph at Mathworld .