Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter | |
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Born | London, England | 9 February 1907
Died | 31 March 2003 Toronto, Ontario, Canada | (aged 96)
Alma mater | University of Cambridge (B.A., 1929; Ph.D., 1931) |
Known for | Coxeter element Coxeter functor Coxeter graph Coxeter group Coxeter matroid Coxeter notation Coxeter's loxodromic sequence of tangent circles Coxeter–Dynkin diagram Coxeter–Todd lattice Boerdijk–Coxeter helix Goldberg–Coxeter construction Todd–Coxeter algorithm* Tutte–Coxeter graph LCF notation Regular skew apeirohedra |
Spouse(s) | Hendrina, died in 1999 |
Children | a daughter, Susan Thomas, and a son, Edgar |
Awards |
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Scientific career | |
Fields | Geometry |
Institutions | University of Toronto |
Doctoral advisor | H. F. Baker[1] |
Doctoral students |
Harold Scott MacDonald "Donald" Coxeter CC FRS FRSC (9 February 1907 – 31 March 2003)[2] was a British-Canadian geometer and mathematician. He is regarded as one of the greatest geometers of the 20th century.[3]
Coxeter was born in England and educated at the University of Cambridge, with student visits to Princeton University. He worked for 60 years at the University of Toronto in Canada, from 1936 until his retirement in 1996, becoming a full professor there in 1948. His many honours included membership in the Royal Society of Canada, the Royal Society, and the Order of Canada.
He was an author of 12 books, including The Fifty-Nine Icosahedra (1938) and Regular Polytopes (1947). Many concepts in geometry and group theory are named after him, including the Coxeter graph, Coxeter groups, Coxeter's loxodromic sequence of tangent circles, Coxeter–Dynkin diagrams, and the Todd–Coxeter algorithm.