John Colin Stillwell (born 1942) is an Australian

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, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

on the faculties of the

University of San Francisco The University of San Francisco (USF) is a private Jesuit university in San Francisco, California. The university's main campus is located on a setting between the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park. The main campus is nicknamed "The Hil ...

and

Monash University Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university has ...

Biography

He was born in

Melbourne, Australia Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metr ...

and lived there until he went to the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

for his doctorate. He received his PhD from MIT in 1970, working under Hartley Rogers, Jr who had himself worked under

Alonzo Church Alonzo Church (June 14, 1903 – August 11, 1995) was an American mathematician, computer scientist, logician, philosopher, professor and editor who made major contributions to mathematical logic and the foundations of theoretical computer scien ...

. From 1970 until 2001 he taught at Monash University back in Australia and in 2002 began teaching in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

Honors

In 2005, Stillwell was the recipient of the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university, college, and high school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure a ...

's prestigious

Chauvenet Prize The Chauvenet Prize is the highest award for mathematical expository writing. It consists of a prize of $1,000 and a certificate, and is awarded yearly by the Mathematical Association of America in recognition of an outstanding expository article ...

for his article “The Story of the

120-Cell In geometry, the 120-cell is the convex regular 4-polytope (four-dimensional analogue of a Platonic solid) with Schläfli symbol . It is also called a C120, dodecaplex (short for "dodecahedral complex"), hyperdodecahedron, polydodecahedron, he ...

,” Notices of the AMS, January 2001, pp. 17–24. In 2012 he became a fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meeting ...

Works

Books

Stillwell is the author of many textbooks and other books on mathematics including: *''Classical Topology and Combinatorial Group Theory'', 1980, *''Mathematics and Its History'', 1989, 3rd edition 2010, *''Geometry of Surfaces'', 1992, *''Elements of Algebra: Geometry, Numbers, Equations'', 1994, *''Numbers and Geometry'', 1998, *''Elements of Number Theory'', 2003, *''The Four Pillars of Geometry'', 2005, *''Yearning for the Impossible: The Surprising Truths of Mathematics'', 2006, *''Naive Lie Theory'', 2008, *''Roads to Infinity'', 2010, *''The Real Numbers: An Introduction to Set Theory and Analysis'', 2013, *''Elements of Mathematics: From Euclid to Gödel'', 2016, *'' Reverse Mathematics: Proofs from the Inside Out'', 2018, *''A Concise History of Mathematics for Philosophers'', 2019, *''The Story of Proof: Logic and the History of Mathematics'', 2022,

Selected articles

* * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stillwell, John 1942 births Living people Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Monash University faculty University of San Francisco faculty Australian mathematicians Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Australian textbook writers People from Melbourne Group theorists Topologists University of Melbourne alumni