W. R. (Red) Alford
W. R. Alford | |
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 W. R. "Red" Alford at the SERMON '99 conference | |
| Born | July 21, 1937 |
| Died | May 29, 2003 (aged 65) |
| Occupation | Mathematician |
William Robert "Red" Alford (July 21, 1937 – May 29, 2003) was an American mathematician who worked in the fields of topology and number theory.
Biography[]
Born in Canton, Mississippi, he was a United States Air Force veteran. He earned his Bachelor of Science in mathematics and physics from The Citadel (1959), his Ph.D in mathematics from Tulane University (1963),[1] and his J.D. from the University of Georgia School of Law (1976) in Athens, Georgia. After earning his J.D. he practiced law in Athens, before returning to the mathematics faculty. He retired in 2002. He died at 65, after suffering from a brain tumor.[2]
With Andrew Granville and Carl Pomerance, he proved the infinitude of Carmichael numbers in 1994[3] based on a conjecture given by Paul Erdős.
Although MathSciNet credits him with only eleven publications, two were in Annals of Mathematics, the most prestigious mathematical journal—the Carmichael numbers paper, and a 1970 paper in knot theory.
References[]
- ^ W. R. (Red) Alford at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- ^ "William R. (Red) Alford". Number Theory Web. Retrieved 2008-02-13.
- ^ W. R. Alford, A. Granville, and C. Pomerance. "There are Infinitely Many Carmichael Numbers." (PostScript) Annals of Mathematics 139 (1994) 703-722.
External links[]
- "William Alford". Archived from the original on June 7, 1997. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
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- 1937 births
- 2003 deaths
- Deaths from brain tumor
- Neurological disease deaths in the United States
- Deaths from cancer in the United States
- 20th-century American mathematicians
- 21st-century American mathematicians
- Number theorists
- University of Georgia faculty
- University of Georgia alumni
- United States Air Force airmen
- The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina alumni
- Georgia (U.S. state) lawyers
- Mathematicians from Mississippi
- Mathematicians from Georgia (U.S. state)
- 20th-century American lawyers
- American mathematician stubs