Norman Woodason Johnson (November 12, 1930 – July 13, 2017) was 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 ...

at Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts.

Early life and education

Norman Johnson was born on 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 ...

. His father had a bookstore and published a local newspaper. Johnson earned his undergraduate mathematics degree in 1953 at

Carleton College Carleton College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, United States. Founded in 1866, the main campus is between Northfield and the approximately Carleton ...

Northfield, Minnesota Northfield is a city in Dakota County, Minnesota, Dakota and Rice County, Minnesota, Rice counties in the U.S. state, state of Minnesota. It is mostly in Rice County, with a small portion in Dakota County. The population was 20,790 at the 2020 U ...

followed by a master's degree from the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

. After graduating in 1953, Johnson did alternative civilian service as a

conscientious objector A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of conscience or religion. The term has also been extended to objecting to working for the military–indu ...

. He earned his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

in 1966 with a dissertation title of ''The Theory of Uniform Polytopes and Honeycombs'' under the supervision of H. S. M. Coxeter. From there, he accepted a position in the Mathematics Department of Wheaton College in Massachusetts and taught until his retirement in 1998.

Career

In 1966, he enumerated 92 convex non-uniform polyhedra with regular faces. Victor Zalgaller later proved (1969) that Johnson's list was complete, and the set is now known as the

Johnson solid In geometry, a Johnson solid, sometimes also known as a Johnson–Zalgaller solid, is a convex polyhedron whose faces are regular polygons. They are sometimes defined to exclude the uniform polyhedrons. There are ninety-two Solid geometry, s ...

s. Johnson is also credited with naming all the uniform star polyhedra and their

duals ''Duals'' is a compilation album by the Irish rock band U2. It was released in April 2011 to u2.com subscribers. Track listing :* "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "Amazing Grace" are studio mix of U2's performance at the Rose Bowl, ...

, as published in

Magnus Wenninger Father Magnus J. Wenninger OSB (October 31, 1919Banchoff (2002)– February 17, 2017) was an American mathematician who worked on constructing polyhedron models, and wrote the first book on their construction. Early life and education Born to ...

's model building books: ''Polyhedron models'' (1971) and ''Dual models'' (1983).

Death and final works

He completed final edits for his book ''Geometries and Transformations'' just before his death on , and nearly completed his manuscript on uniform polytopes.

Works

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ONLINE
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References

External links

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Norman W. Johnson Endowed Fund in Mathematics and Computer Science
at Wheaton College {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Norman 1930 births 2017 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians University of Toronto alumni Wheaton College (Massachusetts) faculty