Person: Mochizuki, Horace Yomishi

Horace Mochizuki was an American mathematician who worked in group theory and is particularly known for his work on the Burnside conjecture.

Horace was brought up on a farm in the Great Central Valley, in California, U.S.A. Horace was only four years old when over 180 Japanese aircraft attacked Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941.
Mochizuki was very musical and while at high school he also attended the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara where he played the violin.
Mochizuki's first three papers were on ring theory.
When Mochizuki arrived in Santa Barbara he soon met another young mathematician Seymour Bachmuth and in December 1965 they began a collaboration.
From this time on Mochizuki contributed to the theory of groups.
We should make special mention of Mochizuki's paper Unipotent matrix groups over division rings (1978) where he presented a non-commutative version of "Kolchin's Theorem" which solved a famous problem of Kaplansky.
Four years later Mochizuki did not attend the Groups St Andrews conference but contributed an important survey paper Automorphisms of solvable groups II.
The junior faculty especially appreciated Horace's advice and encouragement.
Horace loved teaching and doing mathematical research and felt fortunate to be able to do these things.

Born 18 May 1937, California, USA. Died 9 June 1989, Santa Barbara, California, USA.

View full biography at MacTutor

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O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive