Jan Saxl
{{Short description|Czech-British mathematician (1948–2020)}}
{{use dmy dates|date=May 2020}}
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| caption = Jan Saxl at Oberwolfach in 2007
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| birth_date = {{birth date|1948|6|5|df=yes}}
| birth_place = Brno, Czechoslovakia
| death_date = {{death date and age|2020|5|2|1948|6|5|df=yes}}
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| fields = Mathematics
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| alma_mater = University of Oxford
| thesis_title = Multiply Transitive Permutation Groups
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| thesis_year = 1973
| doctoral_advisor = Peter M. Neumann
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Jan Saxl (5 June 1948 – 2 May 2020) was a Czech-British mathematician, and a professor at the University of Cambridge. He was known for his work in finite group theory, particularly on consequences of the classification of finite simple groups.
Education and career
Saxl was born in Brno, in what was at the time Czechoslovakia. He came to the United Kingdom in 1968, during the Prague Spring.{{cite web|url=https://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/news/professor-jan-saxl|title=Professor Jan Saxl (obituary)|work=Gonville & Caius|publisher=University of Cambridge|date=5 May 2020|access-date=9 May 2020}}
After undergraduate studies at the University of Bristol, he completed his DPhil in 1973 at the University of Oxford under the direction of Peter M. Neumann, with the title of Multiply Transitive Permutation Groups.{{MathGenealogy|id=46094}}
Saxl held postdoctoral positions at Oxford and the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a lecturer position at the University of Glasgow. He moved to the University of Cambridge in 1976, and spent the rest of his career there. He was elected as a fellow of Gonville and Caius College in 1986, and he retired in 2015.{{cite web|url=https://www.lms.ac.uk/news-entry/05052020-1505/professor-jan-saxl-leading-figure-algebra|title=Professor Jan Saxl: A leading figure in algebra|publisher=London Mathematical Society|last=Johnson|first=John|date=5 May 2020|access-date=9 May 2020}}
Saxl published around 100 papers, and according to MathSciNet, these have been cited over 1900 times.{{cite web|url=https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet/search/author.html?mrauthid=155270 |title=Jan Saxl author profile|website=MathSciNet|publisher=American Mathematical Society|url-access=subscription}} He is noted for his work in finite group theory, particularly on permutation groups, and often coauthored with Robert Guralnick, Martin Liebeck, and Cheryl Praeger. Some notable and highly-cited examples of this work are as follows. Liebeck, Saxl and Praeger gave a relatively simple and self-contained proof of the O'Nan–Scott theorem.{{cite journal | last1=Liebeck | first1=Martin W. | last2=Praeger | first2=Cheryl E. | last3=Saxl | first3=Jan | title=On the O'Nan-Scott theorem for finite primitive permutation groups | journal=Journal of the Australian Mathematical Society, Series A | publisher=Cambridge University Press (CUP) | volume=44 | issue=3 | year=1988 | issn=0263-6115 | doi=10.1017/s144678870003216x| mr=0929529 | pages=389–396| doi-access=free }} It had long been known that every maximal subgroup of a symmetric group or alternating group was intransitive, imprimitive, or primitive, and the same authors in 1988 gave a partial description of which primitive subgroups could occur.{{cite journal | last1=Liebeck | first1=Martin W | last2=Praeger | first2=Cheryl E | last3=Saxl | first3=Jan | title=A classification of the maximal subgroups of the finite alternating and symmetric groups | journal=Journal of Algebra | publisher=Elsevier BV | volume=111 | issue=2 | year=1987 | issn=0021-8693 | doi=10.1016/0021-8693(87)90223-7 |mr=0916173 | pages=365–383| doi-access=free }}{{cite book | last=Wilson | first=Robert | title=The finite simple groups | publisher=Springer | publication-place=London New York | year=2009 | isbn=978-1-84800-988-2 | oclc=535009535 | page=4}}
Personal life
Saxl was married to Cambridge mathematician Ruth M. Williams and they had one daughter, Miriam.
Death
Awards and honors
A three-day conference in the joint honor of Saxl and Martin Liebeck was held at the University of Cambridge in July 2015.{{cite web|url=https://www.lms.ac.uk/sites/lms.ac.uk/files/files/May%202015.pdf|title=Simple Groups, Representations and Related Topics (conference announcement)|work=Newsletter|publisher=London Mathematical Society|issue=447|year=2015|access-date=9 May 2020}}
Publications
{{Scholia}}
Books
- {{cite journal | last1=Liebeck | first1=Martin | last2=Praeger | first2=Cheryl | last3=Saxl | first3=Jan | title=Regular subgroups of primitive permutation groups | journal=Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society | publisher=American Mathematical Society (AMS) | volume=203 | issue=952 | year=2010 | issn=0065-9266 | doi=10.1090/s0065-9266-09-00569-9| mr=2588738 | isbn=978-0-8218-4654-4 | oclc=457767029}}
- {{cite journal | last1=Guralnick | first1=Robert M. | last2=Müller | first2=Peter | last3=Saxl | first3=Jan | title=The rational function analogue of a question of Schur and exceptionality of permutation representations | journal=Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society | publisher=American Mathematical Society (AMS) | volume=162 | issue=773 | year=2003 | issn=0065-9266 | doi=10.1090/memo/0773 | mr=1955160 |isbn= 9780821832882| arxiv=math/0201069 | s2cid=7113361 }}
- {{cite book | editor1-last=Ivanov | editor1-first=Alexander A. |editor2-last=Liebeck | editor2-first=Martin W. |editor3-last=Saxl|editor3-first=Jan| title=Groups combinatorics & geometry : Durham 2001 | publisher=World Scientific | publication-place=New Jersey London | year=2003 | isbn=981-238-312-3 | oclc=228115554}}
- {{cite book | editor1-last=Liebeck | editor1-first=Martin W. |editor2-last=Saxl|editor2-first=Jan| title=Groups, combinatorics & geometry : Durham, 1990 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | publication-place=Cambridge England New York | year=1992 | isbn=978-0-521-40685-7 | oclc=839544039 }}
- {{cite journal | last1=Liebeck | first1=Martin W. | last2=Praeger | first2=Cheryl E. | last3=Saxl | first3=Jan | title=The maximal factorizations of the finite simple groups and their automorphism groups | journal=Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society | publisher=American Mathematical Society (AMS) | volume=86 | issue=432 | year=1990 | issn=0065-9266 | doi=10.1090/memo/0432 | mr=1016353 | isbn=9780821861554}}
Selected articles
- {{cite journal | last1=Liebeck | first1=Martin W. | last2=Praeger | first2=Cheryl E. | last3=Saxl | first3=Jan | title=On the O'Nan-Scott theorem for finite primitive permutation groups | journal=Journal of the Australian Mathematical Society, Series A | publisher=Cambridge University Press (CUP) | volume=44 | issue=3 | year=1988 | issn=0263-6115 | doi=10.1017/s144678870003216x | pages=389–396| doi-access=free }}
References
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Category:Alumni of the University of Oxford
Category:Cambridge mathematicians
Category:Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Category:University of Illinois Chicago people