Home > J. H. C. Whitehead

He was brought up in Oxford, as was educated at Eton College and Balliol College of Oxford University, reading mathematics. After a year working as a stockbroker, he started a Ph.D. in Princeton in differential geometry under Oswald Veblen in 1929. He worked also with Lefschetz. He became a fellow of Balliol in 1933. During the Second World War he worked on operations researchOperations research operational research or simply OR is the use of mathematical models, statistics and algorithms to aid in decision-making. It is most often used to analyze complex real-world systems, typically with the goal of improving or optimizing p for submarine warfare. He became a professor at Oxford in 1947.

His definition of CW complexIn topology, a CW complex is a type of topological space introduced by J. Whitehead to meet the needs of homotopy theory. The idea was to have a class of spaces that was broader than simplicial complexes (we could say now, had better categorical propertiees gave a setting for homotopy theory that became standard. He introduced the idea of simple homotopy theory , which was later much developed in connection with algebraic K-theoryThe topic of K-theory spans the subjects of algebraic topology, abstract algebra and some areas of application like operator algebras and algebraic geometry. It leads to the construction of families of K functors, which contain useful but often hard-to-co. The Whitehead product is an operation in homotopy theory. The Whitehead problemSet theory Group theory In group theory, the Whitehead problem is the following question: :Is every abelian group A with Ext1 A Z 0 a free abelian group? The condition Ext1 A Z 0 can be equivalently formulated as follows: whenever B is an abelian group an on abelian groupAbstract algebra Algebra Group theory In mathematics, an abelian group is a commutative group, i. a group G ) such that a b b a for all a and b in G''. Abelian groups are named after Niels Henrik Abel. Notation There are two main notational conventions fos was solved (as an independence proof) by Saharon ShelahSaharon Shelah (born July 3, 1945 in Jerusalem) is an Israeli mathematician. He is a professor of mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and also at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA. Shelah's main interest lies in mathematical logic, in pa.

He was the nephew of Alfred North WhiteheadAlfred North Whitehead ( February 15, 1861 December 30, 1947) was a British philosopher and mathematician who worked in logic, mathematics, philosophy of science and metaphysics. His best known work in mathematics is the Principia Mathematica which he wro.

See also: Whitehead continuum.