Luke Thomas Pebody is a mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

 who solved the necklace problem

Necklace problem

The necklace problem is a problem in recreational mathematics, solved in the early 21st century.- Formulation :Suppose that a person you are in contact with has a necklace of n beads, each of which is either black or white. You wish to identify the order in which the n beads go around the...

. Educated at Rugby School

Rugby School

Rugby School is a co-educational day and boarding school located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain.-History:...

, and competing three times in the International Mathematical Olympiad

International Mathematical Olympiad

The International Mathematical Olympiad is an annual six-problem, 42-point mathematical olympiad for pre-collegiate students and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. The first IMO was held in Romania in 1959. It has since been held annually, except in 1980...

, Luke Pebody was admitted to Cambridge University

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 at the age of 14 to read mathematics. He went up when he was 16, making him one of the youngest undergraduates in modern times.

Having graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

, he proceeded to a doctoral degree at the University of Memphis

University of Memphis

The University of Memphis is an American public research university located in the Normal Station neighborhood of Memphis, Tennessee and is the flagship public research university of the Tennessee Board of Regents system....

, where, working with respected graph theorist Béla Bollobás

Béla Bollobás

Béla Bollobás FRS is a Hungarian-born British mathematician who has worked in various areas of mathematics, including functional analysis, combinatorics, graph theory and percolation. As a student, he took part in the first three International Mathematical Olympiads, winning two gold medals...

, he presented a possible solution of the reconstruction problem for abelian groups, including the necklace problem

Necklace problem

The necklace problem is a problem in recreational mathematics, solved in the early 21st century.- Formulation :Suppose that a person you are in contact with has a necklace of n beads, each of which is either black or white. You wish to identify the order in which the n beads go around the...

.

In 2001, he successfully applied for a junior research fellowship at Cambridge. Before returning to take up residence, he completed a year's research at the Institute for Advanced Study

Institute for Advanced Study

The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...

 in Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...

Pebody's contributions to his field included:

• "Contraction-deletion invariants for graphs" (with Béla Bollobás
  Béla Bollobás
  Béla Bollobás FRS is a Hungarian-born British mathematician who has worked in various areas of mathematics, including functional analysis, combinatorics, graph theory and percolation. As a student, he took part in the first three International Mathematical Olympiads, winning two gold medals...
  
   and Oliver Riordan) (J. Combin. Theory Ser. B 80 (2000) 320-345)
• "A state-space representation of the HOMFLY polynomial" (with Béla Bollobás
  Béla Bollobás
  Béla Bollobás FRS is a Hungarian-born British mathematician who has worked in various areas of mathematics, including functional analysis, combinatorics, graph theory and percolation. As a student, he took part in the first three International Mathematical Olympiads, winning two gold medals...
  
   and David Weinreich) (Contemporary Combinatorics, Bolyai Society Mathematical Studies 10, 2002) PDF download

Pebody left the field of mathematics for financial services.

In 2009, he participated in the Google Code Jam under the alias bozzball and was the only person to use the programming language Brainfuck

Brainfuck

The brainfuck programming language is an esoteric programming language noted for its extreme minimalism. It is a Turing tarpit, designed to challenge and amuse programmers, and is not suitable for practical use...

in order to complete a set. He attended the World Final and finished the competition ranked 74th.