Nationality English Fields Mathematician Residence United Kingdom | Name J. Todd Doctoral advisor H.F. Baker Influenced by Solomon Lefschetz | |
Born 23 August 1908
Liverpool, England ( 1908-08-23 ) Institutions University of Manchester
University of Cambridge Alma mater University of Cambridge Doctoral students Peter Newstead
Roger Penrose
Geoffrey Shephard Known for Todd class
Todd–Coxeter algorithm
Chevalley–Shephard–Todd theorem
Coset enumeration
Todd genus
Todd polynomials Died December 22, 1994, Croydon, United Kingdom Education University of Cambridge, Trinity College, Cambridge Similar People Roger Penrose, Solomon Lefschetz, Dennis W Sciama, Karl Popper, Paul Dirac | ||
John Arthur Todd FRS (23 August 1908 – 22 December 1994) was a British geometer.
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Biography
He was born in Liverpool, and went to Trinity College of the University of Cambridge in 1925. He did research under H.F. Baker, and in 1931 took a position at the University of Manchester. He became a lecturer at Cambridge in 1937. He remained at Cambridge for the rest of his working life.
Work
The Todd class in the theory of the higher-dimensional Riemann–Roch theorem is an example of a characteristic class (or, more accurately, a reciprocal of one) that was discovered by Todd in work published in 1937. It used the methods of the Italian school of algebraic geometry. The Todd–Coxeter process for coset enumeration is a major method of computational algebra, and dates from a collaboration with H.S.M. Coxeter in 1936. In 1953 he and Coxeter discovered the Coxeter–Todd lattice. In 1954 he and G. C. Shephard classified the finite complex reflection groups.
Honours
In March 1948 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.