Donald G. Higman

Not to be confused with Graham Higman.

Donald G. Higman (September 20, 1928, Vancouver – February 13, 2006) was an American mathematician known for his discovery, in collaboration with Charles C. Sims, of the Higman–Sims group.[1]

Higman did his undergraduate studies at the University of British Columbia,[1] and received his Ph.D. in 1952 from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign under Reinhold Baer.[2] He served on the faculty of mathematics at the University of Michigan from 1956 to 1998.[1]

His work on homological aspects of group representation theory established the concept of a relatively projective module and explained its role in the theory of module decompositions. He developed a characterization of rank-2 permutation groups, and a theory of rank-3 permutation groups; several of the later-discovered sporadic simple groups were of this type, including the Higman-Sims group which he and Sims constructed in 1967.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Bannai, Eiichi; Griess, Robert L., Jr.; Praeger, Cheryl E.; Scott, Leonard (2009), "The mathematics of Donald Gordon Higman" (PDF), Michigan Math. J. 58.
  2. ↑ Donald G. Higman at the Mathematics Genealogy Project


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