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William Thurston

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William Thurston

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Also known as William Paul Thurston, William P. Thurston

American mathematician (1946–2012)

OverviewAI-generated

William Paul Thurston (1946–2012) was an American mathematician and topologist. He was born in Washington, D.C., and died in Rochester from cancer. Thurston served as a university teacher at Princeton University, the University of California, Davis, the University of California, Berkeley, and Cornell University. He was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and New College of Florida, where Morris Hirsch was his doctoral advisor. His doctoral students included Oded Schramm, David Gabai, Richard Kenyon, and Benson Farb.

Thurston was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He spoke English and had an Erdős number of 2. His work focused on topology and mathematics. He is recognized in the American Academy Arts Sciences collection.

Synthesized by Vinony from 35 facts across 7 sources: Wikidata, Open Library, Crossref, MusicBrainz, Wikiquote, Vinony collections, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Key facts

Born
William Paul Thurston , ( 1946-10-30 ) October 30, 1946, Washington, D.C. , U.S.
Died
August 21, 2012 (2012-08-21) (aged 65), Rochester , New York, U.S.
Alma mater
New College of Florida , University of California, Berkeley
Known for
Thurston's geometrization conjecture , Thurston's 24 questions , Thurston's theory of surfaces , Milnor–Thurston kneading theory , Orbifold , And many other concepts (linked at See also section )
Awards
Fields Medal (1982), Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry (1976), Alan T. Waterman Award (1979), National Academy of Sciences (1983), Doob Prize (2005), Leroy P. Steele Prize (2012).
Fields
Mathematics
Institutions
Cornell University , University of California, Davis , Mathematical Sciences Research Institute , University of California, Berkeley , Princeton University , Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Institute for Advanced Study
Thesis
Foliations of three-manifolds which are circle bundles (1972)
Doctoral advisor
Morris Hirsch
Doctoral students
Danny Calegari , Richard Canary , Benson Farb , David Gabai , William Goldman , Richard Kenyon , Steven Kerckhoff , Yair Minsky , Igor Rivin , Oded Schramm , Richard Schwartz , Jeffrey Weeks

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Instance of
human
Given name
Paul
Gender
male
Citizenship
United States
Place of birth
Washington, D.C.
Place of death
Rochester
Languages spoken
English language
Doctoral advisor
Morris Hirsch
Field of work
mathematics
Image
William Thurston.jpg
Show 9 more facts
date of birth
1946-10-30
date of death
2012-08-21
Commons category
William Thurston
Erdős number
2
manner of death
natural causes
cause of death
cancer
name in native language
William Paul Thurston
maintained by WikiProject
WikiProject Mathematics
Sources (4)

via Wikidata · CC0

~12 min read

Encyclopedic overview

William Paul Thurston (October 30, 1946 – August 21, 2012) was an American mathematician. He was a pioneer in the field of low-dimensional topology and was awarded the Fields Medal in 1982 for his contributions to the study of 3-manifolds.

Thurston was a professor of mathematics at Princeton University, University of California, Davis, and Cornell University. He was also a director of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “William Thurston” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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