James J. Andrews (mathematician)

James J. Andrews (1930–1998) was an American mathematician, a professor of mathematics at Florida State University who specialized in knot theory, topology, and group theory.[1]

Andrews was born March 18, 1930, in Seneca Falls, New York.[1] He did his undergraduate studies at Hofstra College,[1] and earned his doctorate in 1957 from the University of Georgia under the supervision of M. K. Fort, Jr.[2] He worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Georgia, and the University of Washington before joining the FSU faculty in 1961. He retired in 1994,[1][3] and died July 28, 1998 in Tallahassee, Florida.[1][4]

Andrews is known with Morton L. Curtis for the Andrews–Curtis conjecture concerning Nielsen transformations of balanced group presentations.[1] Andrews and Curtis formulated the conjecture in a 1965 paper;[5] it remains open.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Sumners, De Witt (October 1998), "Mathematics professor James Andrews", Florida State Times 4, http://www.fsu.edu/~fstime/FS-Times/Volume4/oct98web/5oct98.html .
  2. ^ James J. Andrews at the Mathematics Genealogy Project..
  3. ^ Retired faculty, Florida State University General Bulletin 1998-1999, retrieved 2011-07-13.
  4. ^ View from the Chair, Florida State University Mathematics Department, Spring 2000, retrieved 2011-07-13.
  5. ^ Andrews, J. J.; Curtis, M. L. (1965), "Free groups and handlebodies", Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society 16 (2): 192–195, doi:10.2307/2033843, JSTOR 2033843, MR0173241 .