Robert Wayne Thomason (nonfiction)

Robert Wayne Thomason (5 November 1952 Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S. – 5 November 1995, Paris, France) was an American mathematician who worked on algebraic K-theory. His results include a proof that all infinite loop space machines are in some sense equivalent, and progress on the Quillen–Lichtenbaum conjecture.

Thomason did his undergraduate studies at Michigan State University, graduating with a B.S. in mathematics in 1973. He completed his Ph.D. at Princeton University in 1977, under the supervision of John Moore. From 1977 to 1979 he was a C. L. E. Moore instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and from 1979 to 1982 he was a Dickson Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago. After spending a year at the Institute for Advanced Study, he was appointed as faculty at Johns Hopkins University in 1983.

Thomason suffered from diabetes; in early November 1995, just shy of his 43rd birthday, he went into diabetic shock and died in his apartment in Paris.

Co-authorship with dream friend

1985: "Higher Algebraic K-Theory of Schemes and of Derived Categories" by Robert Wayne Thomason and Thomas Trobaugh.

In the introduction, Thomason says the paper was co-written by a simulacrum of his late friend Thomas Trobaugh who appeared in Thomason's dreams.

<blockuote> The first author must state that his coauthor and close friend, Tom Trobaugh, quite intelligent, singularly original, and inordinately generous, killed himself consequent to endogenous depression. Ninety-four days later, in my dream, Tom's simulacrum remarked, "The direct limit characterization of perfect complexes shows that they extend, just as one extends a coherent sheaf." Awakening with a start, I knew this idea has to be wrong, since some perfect complexes have a non-vanishing K0 obstruction to extension. I had worked on the problem for 3 years, and saw this approach to be hopeless. But Tom's simulacrum had been so insistent, I knew he wouldn't let me sleep undisturbed until I had worked out the argument and could point to the gap. This work quickly led to the key results of this paper. To Tom, I could have explained why he must be listed as a coauthor. </blockuote>

Publications

• May, J. Peter; Thomason, R. (1978), "The uniqueness of infinite loop space machines", Topology, 17 (3): 205–224, doi:10.1016/0040-9383(78)90026-5, ISSN 0040-9383, MR 0508885

Thomason, Robert W. (1985), "Algebraic K-theory and étale cohomology", Annales Scientifiques de l'École Normale Supérieure, Quatrième Série, 18 (3): 437–552, doi:10.24033/asens.1495, ISSN 0012-9593, MR 0826102 Erratum

• Thomason, Robert W.; Trobaugh, Thomas (1990), "Higher algebraic K-theory of schemes and of derived categories", The Grothendieck Festschrift, Vol. III, Progr. Math., 88, Boston, MA: Birkhäuser Boston, pp. 247–435, doi:10.1007/978-0-8176-4576-2_10, ISBN 978-0-8176-3487-2, MR 1106918
• Thomason, Robert W. (1991), "The local to global principle in algebraic K-theory", in Satake, Ichirô (ed.), Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Vol. I (Kyoto, 1990), Tokyo: Math. Soc. Japan, pp. 381–394, ISBN 978-4-431-70047-0, MR 1159226

References

• EDITORIAL NOTICE: ROBERT W. THOMASON, 1952-1995

• Weibel, Charles A. (1996), "Robert W. Thomason (1952–1995)", Notices of the American Mathematical Society, 43 (8): 860–862, ISSN 0002-9920
• Bak, Anthony; Weibel, Charles (1997), "A tribute to Robert Wayne Thomason (1952–1995)", K-Theory, 12 (1): 1–2, doi:10.1023/A:1007709906247, ISSN 0920-3036, MR 1466621
• Snaith, Victor (1997), "Robert Wayne Thomason. 1952–1995", Algebraic K-theory (Toronto, ON, 1996), Fields Inst. Commun., 16, Providence, R.I.: American Mathematical Society, pp. ix–xiii, MR 1466969
• Weibel, Charles A. (1997), "The mathematical enterprises of Robert Thomason", Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, New Series, 34 (1): 1–13, doi:10.1090/S0273-0979-97-00707-6, ISSN 0002-9904, MR 1401423

External links

• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Robert Wayne Thomason", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews
• Robert Wayne Thomason at the Mathematics Genealogy Project