Person: Lyndon, Roger Conant
Roger Lyndon was an American mathematician who worked in topology and group theory.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Having worked for a year in a bank in Albuquerque, Lyndon returned to Harvard, being awarded a Master's Degree in 1941.
- The men Lyndon taught went on to serve their country by manning ships, flying planes and commanding troops.
- On the research front Lyndon took some time working in different mathematical areas.
- Interestingly Lyndon's first publication was not in any of the topics that we have mentioned above but rather was The Zuse computer (1947).
- Lyndon's second paper The Cohomology Theory of Group Extensions was based on his doctoral thesis and appeared in print in 1948.
- After attending a course by Alfred Tarski, Lyndon and Tarski became good friends and Lyndon was later to work on model theory as a result of attending these lectures.
- For two years after completing is doctorate, Lyndon worked for the Office of Naval Research in London.
- Kurt Reidemeister was at Princeton for a year in 1948 and again this was a major influence on Lyndon to work on group presentations.
- Lyndon's first work which came out of these discussions with Reidemeister was published in 1950.
- In it Lyndon investigated one-relator groups.
- In 1953 Lyndon left Princeton, where he had been promoted to assistant professor, and took up an assistant professorship at the University of Michigan where he remained throughout his career except for a number of posts as visiting professor at Berkeley, Queen Mary College, London, Montpellier, France and Picardie, France.
- Lyndon made numerous major contributions to combinatorial group theory.
- Lyndon was the coauthor of one of the most important works on combinatorial group theory.
- Combinatorial group theory was not Lyndon's first book, however, for he had published Notes on logic ten years earlier in 1966.
- Lyndon's last book was Groups and geometry (1985).
- At Michigan, Lyndon supervised many Ph.D. students.
- The titles of their theses indicate the wide range of Lyndon's interests.
- My conversations with Lyndon often took place in the newly established common room, which was supplied with a large coffee percolator.
Born 18 December 1917, Calais, Maine, USA. Died 8 June 1988, Ann Arbor, Washtenaw, Michigan.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Group Theory, Origin Usa
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
