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.
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.
- A person in a dream co-authored a math paper @ Boing Boing
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