John Lewis Rhodes is a mathematician known for work in the theory of

semigroup In mathematics, a semigroup is an algebraic structure consisting of a set together with an associative internal binary operation on it. The binary operation of a semigroup is most often denoted multiplicatively: ''x''·''y'', or simply ''xy'', ...

finite state automata A finite-state machine (FSM) or finite-state automaton (FSA, plural: ''automata''), finite automaton, or simply a state machine, is a mathematical model of computation. It is an abstract machine that can be in exactly one of a finite number o ...

, and algebraic approaches to

differential equations In mathematics, a differential equation is an equation that relates one or more unknown functions and their derivatives. In applications, the functions generally represent physical quantities, the derivatives represent their rates of change, an ...

Education and career

Rhodes was born in

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

, on July 16, 1937, but grew up in

Wooster, Ohio Wooster ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Wayne County. Located in northeastern Ohio, the city lies approximately south-southwest of Cleveland, southwest of Akron and west of Canton. The population was 27,232 at t ...

, where he founded the Wooster Rocket Society as a teenager. In the fall of 1955, Rhodes entered 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 the ...

intending to major in physics, but he soon switched to mathematics, earning his B.S. in 1960 and his Ph.D. in 1962. His Ph.D. thesis, co-written with a graduate student from Harvard, Kenneth Krohn, became known as the Prime Decomposition Theorem, or more simply the Krohn–Rhodes Theorem. After a year on an

NSF NSF may stand for: Political organizations *National Socialist Front, a Swedish National Socialist party *NS-Frauenschaft, the women's wing of the former German Nazi party *National Students Federation, a leftist Pakistani students' political gr ...

fellowship in

Paris, France Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, he became a member of the Faculty of Mathematics at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, where he spent his entire teaching career. In the late 1960s Rhodes wrote ''Applications of Automata Theory and Algebra: Via the Mathematical Theory of Complexity to Biology, Physics, Psychology, Philosophy, and Games'', informally known as ''The Wild Book'', which quickly became an underground classic, but remained in typescript until its revision and editing by Chrystopher L. Nehaniv in 2009. The following year Springer published his and Benjamin Steinberg's magnum opus,
The q-Theory of Finite Semigroups
', both a history of the field and the fruit of eight years' development of finite semigroup theory. In recent years Rhodes brought semigroups into

matroid theory In combinatorics, a branch of mathematics, a matroid is a structure that abstracts and generalizes the notion of linear independence in vector spaces. There are many equivalent ways to define a matroid axiomatically, the most significant being in ...

. In 2015 he published, with Pedro V. Silva, the results of his current work in another monograph with Springer, ''Boolean Representations of Simplicial Complexes and Matroids''.John Rhodes and Pedro V. Silva (2015-04). ''Boolean Representations of Simplicial Complexes and Matroids.'' Springer Verlag.

Books and Monographs

* John Rhodes and Benjamin Steinberg (2008), ''The q-theory of finite semigroups.'' Springer Verlag. . * "The Wild Book", published as ''Applications of Automata Theory and Algebra via the Mathematical Theory of Complexity to Biology, Physics, Psychology, Philosophy, and Games.'' John Rhodes; Chrystopher L. Nehaniv (Ed.) (2009), World Scientific. * John Rhodes and Pedro V. Silva (2015), ''Boolean Representations of Simplicial Complexes and Matroids.'' Springer Verlag.

References

External links

Academic homepage

Personal homepage

Springer Monographs download page: q-Theory of Finite Semigroups

Review of ''Applications of Automata Theory'' by Attila Egri-Nagy

Springer Monographs download page: Boolean Representations of Simplicial Complexes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rhodes, John 1937 births Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians People from Wooster, Ohio Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty Mathematicians from Ohio

Education and career

Books and Monographs

See also

References

External links