Biography:Robert Griess

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Short description: American mathematician
Robert Griess
Robert Griess.jpg
Born (1945-10-10) October 10, 1945 (age 78)
Savannah, GA, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Chicago (B.S., 1967; M.S., 1968; Ph.D., 1971)
Known forClassification of sporadic groups (Happy Family and pariahs)
Construction of the Fischer–Griess Monster group
Gilman–Griess theorem
Griess algebra
AwardsLeroy P. Steele Prize (2010)
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsUniversity of Michigan
ThesisSchur Multipliers of the Known Finite Simple Groups (1972)
Doctoral advisorJohn Griggs Thompson

Robert Louis Griess, Jr. (born 1945, Savannah, Georgia) is a mathematician working on finite simple groups and vertex algebras.[1] He is currently the John Griggs Thompson Distinguished University Professor of mathematics at University of Michigan.[2]

Education

Griess developed a keen interest in mathematics prior to entering undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago in the fall of 1963.[3] There, he eventually earned a Ph.D. in 1971 after defending a dissertation on the Schur multipliers of the then-known finite simple groups.[4]

Career

Griess' work has focused on group extensions, cohomology and Schur multipliers, as well as on vertex operator algebras and the classification of finite simple groups.[5][6] In 1982, he published the first construction of the monster group using the Griess algebra, and in 1983 he was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Warsaw to give a lecture on the sporadic groups and his construction of the monster group.[7] In the same landmark 1982 paper where he published his construction, Griess detailed an organization of the twenty-six sporadic groups into two general families of groups: the Happy Family and the pariahs.[8]

He became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007, and a fellow of the American Mathematical Society in 2012.[9][10] In 2020 he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences.[11] Since 2006, Robert Griess has been an editor for Electronic Research Announcements of the AIMS (ERA-AIMS), a peer-review journal.[12]

In 2010, he was awarded the AMS Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research for his construction of the monster group, which he named the Friendly Giant.[13]

Selected publications

Books

Journal articles

References

  1. Griess, Jr., Robert L. (2020). "Research topics in finite groups and vertex algebras". Vertex Operator Algebras, Number Theory and Related Topics. Contemporary Mathematics. 753. Providence, Rhode Island: American Mathematical Society. pp. 119–126. doi:10.1090/CONM/753/15167. ISBN 9781470449384. Bibcode2019arXiv190308805G. 
  2. "Griess Named Distinguished University Professor". University of Michigan. May 20, 2016. https://lsa.umich.edu/math/news-events/all-news/search-news/griess-named-distinguished-university-professor.html. 
  3. Griess, Jr., Robert L. (2010-08-18). "Interview with Prof. Robert Griess". Interviews in English (Interview). Interviewed by Shun-Jen Cheng and company. New Taipei: Institute of Mathematics, Academia Sinica. Retrieved 2023-01-07.
  4. Griess, Robert L. (1972). "Schur Multipliers of the Known Finite Simple Groups". Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 78 (1): 68–71. doi:10.1090/S0002-9904-1972-12855-6. https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1972-78-01/S0002-9904-1972-12855-6/S0002-9904-1972-12855-6.pdf. 
  5. Smith, Stephen D. (2018). "A Survey: Bob Griess' work on Simple Groups and their Classification". Bulletin of the Institute of Mathematics (Academia Sinica (New Series)) 13 (4): 365–382. doi:10.21915/BIMAS.2018401. https://web.math.sinica.edu.tw/bulletin_ns/20184/2018401.pdf. 
  6. Griess, Jr., Robert L. (2021). "My life and times with the sporadic simple groups". Notices of the International Consortium of Chinese Mathematicians 9 (1): 11–46. doi:10.4310/ICCM.2021.v9.n1.a2. ISSN 2326-4810. https://www.intlpress.com/site/pub/pages/journals/items/iccm/content/vols/0009/0001/a002/index.php?mode=ns. 
  7. "Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, August 16-24, 1983, Warszawa". IMU. pp. 369–384. https://www.mathunion.org/fileadmin/ICM/Proceedings/ICM1983.1/ICM1983.1.ocr.pdf.  Lecture on "The sporadic simple groups and construction of the monster."
  8. Griess, Jr., Robert L. (1982). "The Friendly Giant". Inventiones Mathematicae 69: 91. doi:10.1007/BF01389186. Bibcode1982InMat..69....1G. https://www.digizeitschriften.de/dms/img/?PPN=PPN356556735_0069&DMDID=dmdlog7. 
  9. "Robert L. Griess (Member)". AAA&S. https://www.amacad.org/person/robert-l-griess. 
  10. "List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society". AMS. https://www.ams.org/profession/fellows-list. 
  11. "National Academy of Sciences Elects New Members". NAS. April 27, 2020. https://www.nasonline.org/news-and-multimedia/news/2020-nas-election.html. 
  12. "Editorial Board". American Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS). http://eramath.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/EditorialBoard.html.  Previously published by the AMS, ISSN 1079-6762
  13. "2010 Steele Prizes". Notices of the American Mathematical Society 57 (4): 511–513. April 2010. ISSN 0002-9920. https://www.ams.org/notices/201004/rtx100400510p.pdf. 
    "To Robert L. Griess Jr. for his construction of the 'Monster' sporadic finite simple group, which he first announced in 'A construction of F1 as automorphisms of a 196,883-dimensional algebra' (Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 78 (1981), no. 2, part 1, 686-691) with details published in 'The friendly giant' (Invent. Math. 69 (1982), no. 1, 1-102)."
  14. Conder, Marston (December 2003). "Review: Twelve Sporadic Groups, by Robert L. Griess, Jr..". Newsletter of the New Zealand Mathematical Society 89: 44–45. ISSN 0110-0025. https://nzmathsoc.org.nz/downloads/newsletters/NZMSnews89_Dec2003.pdf?1262333312. 

External links