Nationality American Role Professor of mathematics Alma mater University of Chicago Died April 12, 2004 | Doctoral advisor Norman Steenrod Fields Mathematics Name George Whitehead | |
Born August 2, 1918
Bloomington, Illinois ( 1918-08-02 ) Institutions Massachusetts Institute of Technology Doctoral students Robert Aumann
Edgar H. Brown, Jr. (de)
John Coleman Moore Education University of Chicago (1941) Books Elements of Homotopy Theory, Homotopy Theory, Recent Advances in Homotopy Theory Awards Guggenheim Fellowship for Natural Sciences, US & Canada Similar People Norman Steenrod, Robert Aumann, Thomas Schelling | ||
George William Whitehead, Jr. (August 2, 1918 – April 12, 2004) was an American professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is known for his work on algebraic topology. He invented the J-homomorphism, and was among the first to systematically calculate the homotopy groups of spheres.
Whitehead was born in Bloomington, Illinois, and received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago in 1941, under the supervision of Norman Steenrod. After teaching at Purdue University, Princeton University, and Brown University, he took a position at MIT in 1949, where he remained until his retirement in 1985. He advised 13 Ph.D. students, including Robert Aumann and John Coleman Moore, and has over 750 academic descendants.