Michael J. T. Guy (born 1 April 1943) is a British
computer scientist
A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science.
Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...
and
mathematician. He is known for early work on computer systems, such as the
Phoenix system at the
University of Cambridge, and for contributions to
number theory,
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 mathematical expressions ...
, and the theory of
polyhedra in higher dimensions. He worked closely with
John Horton Conway, and is the son of Conway's collaborator
Richard K. Guy
Richard Kenneth Guy (30 September 1916 – 9 March 2020) was a British mathematician. He was a professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Calgary. He is known for his work in number theory, geometry, recreational mathemati ...
.
Mathematical work
With
Conway, Guy found the complete solution to the
Soma cube of
Piet Hein. Also with Conway, an enumeration led to the discovery of the
grand antiprism, an unusual
uniform polychoron in four dimensions. The two had met at
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, 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. 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, 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 groups.
Guy began work as a research student of
J. W. S. Cassels
John William Scott "Ian" Cassels, FRS (11 July 1922 – 27 July 2015) was a British mathematician.
Biography
Cassels was educated at Neville's Cross Council School in Durham and George Heriot's School in Edinburgh. He went on to study at ...
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 In mathematics, Helmut Hasse's local–global principle, also known as the Hasse principle, is the idea that one can find an integer solution to an equation by using the Chinese remainder theorem to piece together solutions modulo powers of each di ...
for
cubic surfaces.
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. In working on
ALGOL 68, he was co-author with
Stephen R. Bourne
Stephen Richard "Steve" Bourne (born 7 January 1944) is an English computer scientist based in the United States for most of his career. He is well known as the author of the Bourne shell (sh), which is the foundation for the standard command-li ...
of
ALGOL 68C.
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