Donald G. Higman

Donald G. Higman (September 20, 1928, Vancouver – February 13, 2006) was an American mathematician known for his discovery, in collaboration with Charles C. Sims, of the Higman–Sims group.^[1]

Higman did his undergraduate studies at the University of British Columbia,^[1] and received his Ph.D. in 1952 from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign under Reinhold Baer.^[2] He served on the faculty of mathematics at the University of Michigan from 1956 to 1998.^[1]

His work on homological aspects of group representation theory established the concept of a relatively projective module and explained its role in the theory of module decompositions. He developed a characterization of rank-2 permutation groups, and a theory of rank-3 permutation groups; several of the later-discovered sporadic simple groups were of this type, including the Higman-Sims group which he and Sims constructed in 1967.^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Bannai, Eiichi; Griess, Robert L., Jr.; Praeger, Cheryl E.; Scott, Leonard (2009), "The mathematics of Donald Gordon Higman", Michigan Math. J. 58, http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~rlg/donaldhigmanproject/HigmanBioMMJ581_bio.pdf .
2. ^ Donald G. Higman at the Mathematics Genealogy Project.

Persondata
Name	Higman, Donald G.
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1928-09-20
Place of birth	Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Date of death	2006-02-13
Place of death