John Bligh Conway (born September 22, 1939) is an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

. He is currently a professor emeritus at the

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally-chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Originally named Columbian College, it was chartered in 1821 by ...

. His specialty is

functional analysis Functional analysis is a branch of mathematical analysis, the core of which is formed by the study of vector spaces endowed with some kind of limit-related structure (for example, Inner product space#Definition, inner product, Norm (mathematics ...

, particularly

bounded operator In functional analysis and operator theory, a bounded linear operator is a linear transformation L : X \to Y between topological vector spaces (TVSs) X and Y that maps bounded subsets of X to bounded subsets of Y. If X and Y are normed vector ...

s on

Hilbert space In mathematics, a Hilbert space is a real number, real or complex number, complex inner product space that is also a complete metric space with respect to the metric induced by the inner product. It generalizes the notion of Euclidean space. The ...

s. Conway earned his B.S. from Loyola University and Ph.D. from

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as Louisiana State University (LSU), is an American Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louis ...

under the direction of Heron Collins in 1965, with a dissertation on ''The Strict Topology and Compactness in the Space of Measures''. He has had 20 students who obtained doctorates under his supervision, most of them at

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a state university system, system of Public university, public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. The system has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration o ...

, where he was a close friend of mathematician Max Zorn. He served on the faculty there from 1965 to 1990, when he became head of the mathematics department at the

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (or The University of Tennessee; UT; UT Knoxville; or colloquially UTK or Tennessee) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee, United St ...

. He is the author of a two-volume series on ''Functions of One Complex Variable'' (Springer-Verlag), which is a standard graduate text.

Selected publications

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References

External links

* * 1939 births 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Functional analysts George Washington University faculty Living people Louisiana State University alumni American mathematical analysts Mathematicians from Louisiana Scientists from New Orleans {{US-mathematician-stub