science · 23 September 1971 · 53 years ago
death
Died 23 Sep 1971 at age 83 (born 19 Sep 1888).
James Waddell Alexander was an American mathematician who founded the branch of mathematics originally known as analysis situs, now called topology. In 1912, he joined the faculty of the mathematics department at Princeton. Soon after, Alexander generalised the Jordan curve theorem and, in 1928, he discovered the Alexander polynomial which is much used in knot theory.
OnThisDay.net