Michael J. T. Guy (born 1 April 1943) is a British

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

and

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 known for early work on computer systems, such as the Phoenix system at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, and for contributions to

number theory Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example ...

computer algebra In mathematics and computer science, computer algebra, also called symbolic computation or algebraic computation, is a scientific area that refers to the study and development of algorithms and software for manipulating expression (mathematics), ...

, and the theory of

polyhedra In geometry, a polyhedron (: polyhedra or polyhedrons; ) is a three-dimensional figure with flat polygonal faces, straight edges and sharp corners or vertices. The term "polyhedron" may refer either to a solid figure or to its boundary su ...

in higher dimensions. He worked closely with

John Horton Conway John Horton Conway (26 December 1937 – 11 April 2020) was an English mathematician. He was active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He also made contributions to many b ...

, and is the son of Conway's collaborator Richard K. Guy.

Mathematical work

With

Conway Conway may refer to: Places United States * Conway, Arkansas * Conway County, Arkansas * Lake Conway, Arkansas * Conway, Florida * Conway, Iowa * Conway, Kansas * Conway, Louisiana * Conway, Massachusetts * Conway, Michigan * Conway Townshi ...

, Guy found the complete solution to the

Soma cube The Soma cube is a mechanical puzzle#Assembly, solid dissection puzzle invented by Danish polymath Piet Hein (scientist), Piet Hein in 1933 during a lecture on quantum mechanics conducted by Werner Heisenberg. Seven different Polycube, pieces ...

of Piet Hein. Also with Conway, an enumeration led to the discovery of the

grand antiprism In geometry, the grand antiprism or pentagonal double antiprismoid is a uniform 4-polytope (4-dimensional uniform polytope) bounded by 320 cells: 20 pentagonal antiprisms, and 300 tetrahedra. It is an anomalous, non-Wythoffian uniform 4-polyto ...

, an unusual

uniform polychoron In geometry, a uniform 4-polytope (or uniform polychoron) is a 4-dimensional polytope which is vertex-transitive and whose cells are uniform polyhedron, uniform polyhedra, and faces are regular polygons. There are 47 non-Prism (geometry), prism ...

in four dimensions. The two had met at

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, commonly known as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348 by Edmund Gonville, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and ...

, where Guy was an undergraduate student from 1960, and Conway was a graduate student. It was through Michael that Conway met Richard Guy, who would become a co-author of works in

combinatorial game theory Combinatorial game theory is a branch of mathematics and theoretical computer science that typically studies sequential games with perfect information. Research in this field has primarily focused on two-player games in which a ''position'' ev ...

. Michael Guy with Conway made numerous particular contributions to geometry, number and game theory, often published in problem selections by Richard Guy. Some of these are

recreational mathematics Recreational mathematics is mathematics carried out for recreation (entertainment) rather than as a strictly research-and-application-based professional activity or as a part of a student's formal education. Although it is not necessarily limited ...

, others contributions to

discrete mathematics Discrete mathematics is the study of mathematical structures that can be considered "discrete" (in a way analogous to discrete variables, having a bijection with the set of natural numbers) rather than "continuous" (analogously to continuous f ...

. They also worked on the

sporadic group In the mathematical classification of finite simple groups, there are a number of groups which do not fit into any infinite family. These are called the sporadic simple groups, or the sporadic finite groups, or just the sporadic groups. A simpl ...

s. Guy began work as a research student of

J. W. S. Cassels John William Scott "Ian" Cassels, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (11 July 1922 – 27 July 2015) was a British mathematician. Biography Cassels was educated at Neville's Cross Council School in Durham, England, Durham and George Heriot's ...

at Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics (DPMMS), Cambridge. He did not complete a Ph.D., but joint work with Cassels produced numerical examples on the Hasse principle for

cubic surface In mathematics, a cubic surface is a surface in 3-dimensional space defined by one polynomial equation of degree 3. Cubic surfaces are fundamental examples in algebraic geometry. The theory is simplified by working in projective space rather than ...

Computer science

He subsequently went into computer science. He worked on the filing system for

Titan Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...

, Cambridge's Atlas 2, being one of a team of four in one office including

Roger Needham Roger Michael Needham (9 February 1935 – 1 March 2003) was a British computer scientist. Early life and education Needham was born in Birmingham, England, the only child of Phyllis Mary, ''née'' Baker (''c''.1904–1976) and Leonard Wil ...

. In working on

ALGOL 68 ALGOL 68 (short for ''Algorithmic Language 1968'') is an imperative programming language member of the ALGOL family that was conceived as a successor to the ALGOL 60 language, designed with the goal of a much wider scope of application and ...

, he was co-author with Stephen R. Bourne of

ALGOL 68C ALGOL 68C is an imperative computer programming language, a dialect of ALGOL 68, that was developed by Stephen R. Bourne and Michael Guy to program the Cambridge Algebra System (CAMAL). The initial compiler was written in the Princeton Synta ...

.ALGOL 68C
/ref>

Bibliography

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Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Guy, Michael J. T. 1940s births Living people 20th-century British mathematicians Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Recreational mathematicians Mathematics popularizers British computer scientists Year of birth missing (living people)