Horace Yomishi Mochizuki (18 May 1937 – 9 June 1989) was an American mathematician known for his contributions to

group theory In abstract algebra, group theory studies the algebraic structures known as group (mathematics), groups. The concept of a group is central to abstract algebra: other well-known algebraic structures, such as ring (mathematics), rings, field ...

. Mochizuki received a special award from the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

for his work on the

Burnside problem The Burnside problem asks whether a finitely generated group in which every element has finite order must necessarily be a finite group. It was posed by William Burnside in 1902, making it one of the oldest questions in group theory and was influ ...

Biography

Mochizuki was born in California on 18 May 1937 from parents of Japanese ancestry. Following the Imperial Japan's

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...

, President Roosevelt authorized on 19 February 1942 the deportation and internment of

Japanese Americans are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...

with

Executive Order 9066 Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the secretary of war to prescribe certain ...

which allowed regional military commanders to designate "military areas" from which "any or all persons may be excluded". This authority was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the West Coast, including all of

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and parts of

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

, and

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

, except for those in government camps. Mochizuki was interned with his family in the Jerome War Relocation Center in Arkansas. After World War II, the family moved back to Madera, California, where Horace won the Madera County

spelling bee A spelling bee is a competition in which contestants are asked to spell a broad selection of words, usually with a varying degree of difficulty. To compete, contestants must memorize the spellings of words as written in dictionaries, and recite ...

in 1951. Mochizuki received his doctoral degree from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

with a dissertation work entitled "Finitistic homological dimensions and duality theory for rings". He began teaching at

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

in 1965. Mochizuki died on 9 June 1989 from cancer of the pancreas. His wife, Keiko, committed suicide two days later by drowning in the Pacific Ocean.

Work

At the beginning of his academic career, Mochizuki's worked on ring theory. He started to cooperate with Seymour Bachmuth on

. For his work on Burnside groups, Mochizuki received a special award from the

for "projects of high scientific merit involving scientists with a record of outstanding research accomplishments..." Mochizuki is known for a non-commutative version of "Kolchin's Theorem" that solved a theorem of Ivan Kaplansky and for his work on automorphism groups with Bachmuth.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mochizuki, Horace Yomishi Mathematicians from California 1937 births 1989 deaths People from Madera, California Japanese-American internees American academics of Japanese descent University of Washington alumni University of California, Santa Barbara faculty Group theorists