George William Whitehead, Jr. (August 2, 1918 – April 12, 2004) was a professor of mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

, a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences

United States National Academy of Sciences

The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...

, and a Fellow

Fellow

A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...

 of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

. He is known for his work on algebraic topology

Algebraic topology

Algebraic topology is a branch of mathematics which uses tools from abstract algebra to study topological spaces. The basic goal is to find algebraic invariants that classify topological spaces up to homeomorphism, though usually most classify up to homotopy equivalence.Although algebraic topology...

. He invented the J-homomorphism

J-homomorphism

In mathematics, the J-homomorphism is a mapping from the homotopy groups of the special orthogonal groups to the homotopy groups of spheres. It was defined by , extending a construction of .-Definition:...

, and was among the first to systematically calculate the homotopy groups of spheres

Homotopy groups of spheres

In the mathematical field of algebraic topology, the homotopy groups of spheres describe how spheres of various dimensions can wrap around each other. They are examples of topological invariants, which reflect, in algebraic terms, the structure of spheres viewed as topological spaces, forgetting...

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Whitehead was born in Bloomington, Illinois

Bloomington, Illinois

Bloomington is a city in McLean County, Illinois, United States and the county seat. It is adjacent to Normal, Illinois, and is the more populous of the two principal municipalities of the Bloomington-Normal metropolitan area...

, and received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 in 1941, under the supervision of Norman Steenrod

Norman Steenrod

Norman Earl Steenrod was a preeminent mathematician most widely known for his contributions to the field of algebraic topology.-Life:...

. After teaching at Purdue University

Purdue University

Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...

, Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

, and Brown University

Brown University

Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...

, he took a position at MIT in 1949, where he remained until his retirement in 1985. He advised 13 Ph.D. students, including Robert Aumann

Robert Aumann

Robert John Aumann is an Israeli-American mathematician and a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. He is a professor at the Center for the Study of Rationality in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel...

 and John Coleman Moore

John Coleman Moore

John Coleman Moore is an American mathematician. He received his Ph.D. in 1952 from Brown University under the supervision of George W. Whitehead. His most heavily cited paper is on Hopf algebras, co-authored with John Milnor. As a faculty member at Princeton University, he advised 23 students and...

, and has over 750 academic descendants

Academic genealogy

An academic, or scientific, genealogy, organizes a family tree of scientists and scholars according to dissertation supervision relationships....

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Selected publications