Joseph Jonah Rotman (May 26, 1934 – October 16, 2016) was a Professor of

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

at the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

and also a published author of 10 textbooks. Rotman was born in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. He did his undergraduate and graduate work at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

, where he received his doctorate in 1959 with a thesis in

abelian group In mathematics, an abelian group, also called a commutative group, is a group in which the result of applying the group operation to two group elements does not depend on the order in which they are written. That is, the group operation is commu ...

s written under the direction of

Irving Kaplansky Irving Kaplansky (March 22, 1917 – June 25, 2006) was a mathematician, college professor, author, and amateur musician.O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Irving Kaplansky", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St And ...

. In 1959 he moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he spent the rest of his mathematical career. Rotman retired from UIUC in 2004. His research interests lay in the area of

algebra Algebra is a branch of mathematics that deals with abstract systems, known as algebraic structures, and the manipulation of expressions within those systems. It is a generalization of arithmetic that introduces variables and algebraic ope ...

, involving abelian groups, modules,

homological algebra Homological algebra is the branch of mathematics that studies homology (mathematics), homology in a general algebraic setting. It is a relatively young discipline, whose origins can be traced to investigations in combinatorial topology (a precurs ...

, and

combinatorics Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and as an end to obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many ...

. Rotman was the Managing Editor of the ''

Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society ''Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of mathematics published by the American Mathematical Society. The journal is devoted to shorter research articles. As a requirement, all articles ...

'' in 1972–1973.Retirements: Joseph Rotman
, Math Times, Spring 2004, p. 9, Department of Mathematics,

. In 1985 he was the Annual Visiting Lecturer of the South African Mathematical Society.Faculty honors
, Department of Mathematics,

. A partial list of Rotman's publications includes: * ''An Introduction to Homological Algebra'' (1979), Pure and Applied Mathematics, vol. 85, Academic Press; * ''An Introduction to Algebraic Topology'' (1988), Springer-Verlag; * ''An Introduction to the Theory of Groups'' (1995), Springer-Verlag; * ''A First Course in Abstract Algebra'' (2000), Prentice Hall; * ''Advanced Modern Algebra'' (2002), Prentice Hall; * ''Journey into Mathematics: an introduction to proofs'' (2006),

Dover Publications Dover Publications, also known as Dover Books, is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward and Blanche Cirker. It primarily reissues books that are out of print from their original publishers. These are often, but not always, book ...

;

References

1934 births 2016 deaths 21st-century American mathematicians University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty University of Chicago alumni Algebraists Mathematicians from Chicago 20th-century American mathematicians {{US-mathematician-stub