National Medal Of Science Goes To UF Mathematics Professor

November 13, 2000

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A University of Florida mathematician who once crafted a 253-page proof that occupied an entire academic journal issue has received what is arguably the nation’s most prestigious awards for science and engineering research.

John Griggs Thompson, a graduate research professor of mathematics, is one of 12 recipients of the National Medal of Science awarded by President Clinton, the White House announced today. The medals, honoring scientific leaders who have changed or set new directions in a range of disciplines, will be presented at a Dec. 1 dinner in Washington, D.C.

“It’s wonderful to receive this recognition,” said Thompson. “I’m honored.”

The award winners include two Nobel prize winners, one from the 1950s and another from the 1990s. The group also includes leaders in social policy, neuroscience, biology, chemistry, bioengineering, mathematics, physics and earth and environmental sciences.

“These exceptional scientists and engineers have transformed our world and enhanced our daily lives,” Clinton said in a White House news release. “Their imagination and ingenuity will continue to inspire future generations of American scientists to remain at the cutting edge of scientific discovery and technological innovation.”

According to the National Science Foundation, which administers the awards for the White House, Thompson, 68, is “considered a world leader in algebra and a foremost group theorist.”

Group theory is a branch of mathematics that focuses on the study of symmetries — such as the symmetries of a geometric figure, or symmetries that arise in solutions to algebraic equations. Thompson is noted in the field for solving with fellow mathematician Walter Feit one of its thorniest problems, the so-called “odd order” problem. That achievement won Thompson the Fields Medal, the highest prize in mathematics, in 1970.

With its 253 pages of equations, the proof, or mathematical argument, filled an entire issue of the Pacific Journal of Mathematics. In a discipline where such proofs often run 100 pages, it stands out as one of math’s longest and most complex, said Krishnaswami Alladi, professor and chairman of the mathematics department.

Thompson also worked closely on a collaborative project that led to another milestone in 20th-century mathematics: the classification of the finite simple groups, which he described as the building blocks of more general groups.

“The classification was completed in the 1980s owing to the collective effort of many great mathematicians,” Alladi said. “John Thompson was one of the most prominent group theorists whose work and ideas was crucial in the classification.”

Although Thompson’s work is abstract and theoretical, group theory has important applications in physics, chemistry and other fields, Alladi and Thompson said. It also has been used to create error-correcting codes, which help reduce interference and improve clarity in satellite-Earth communications systems, Thompson said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see group theory used in any number of places,” Thompson said. “It’s a rich structure. It gives information about complex circumstances in certain cases.”

The National Medal of Science is only the latest achievement for Thompson, who also received the American Mathematical Society’s Cole Prize, the Wolf Prize and Henri Poincare golden medal. “Professor Thompson has received several very prestigious awards, but this national recognition of the highest level has come during his tenure at the University of Florida,” Alladi said. “So we are immensely pleased and proud of this recognition.”

Thompson’s career began at Yale University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics before going to graduate school at the University of Chicago. After receiving his doctorate in 1959, Thompson worked as an assistant professor at Harvard University and then as a professor at the University of Chicago. In 1970, he was appointed Rouse Ball Professor at the University of Cambridge, where he spent the next 23 years before coming to UF in 1993.

Ironically, when Thompson entered Yale University as an undergraduate in the early 1950s, he intended to major in theology and become a Presbyterian minister.

“It was very exciting to come into contact with deep mathematics and respond to its call,” Thompson said.

Thompson is the third UF researcher to receive the National Medal. Daniel Drucker, a graduate research professor emeritus of engineering, received the medal in 1988, and John Slater, a former UF professor of physical sciences, received it in 1970.