Math Historian, Bruce Chandler

Bruce Chandler speaking at Wilhelm Magnus' 100th Anniversary. Bruce Chandler co-authored the book "The History of Combinatorial Group Theory: A Case Study in the History of Ideas" with Wilhelm Magnus. It was in page 121 of that book that I found a problem that had been open for over 30 years involving whether a particular family of one-relator groups discovered by Gilbert Baumslag in the 60's could have non isomorphic groups in it. I eventually solved the problem as a very small part of my PhD dissertation. More about what inspired my approach later.

 

 

Link to book here: amzn.to/3sKSDiv

 

Side comment:

 

So enthralled was I by the question raised in page 121 of Chandler and Magus' book that I chose to purchase a computer in order to do the calculations. At the time I had no idea I could use a computer on campus as my advisor had gone abroad for two years on a sabbatical and left me working on my thesis and I forgot to ask him for his email. So I bought a computer and chose to eat less for a while teaching upwards of 3 coursers per semester all over New York City in order to make ends meet. 2 years later I had solved the problems I set out to solve and in addition as a very small part of my thesis and thanks to a comment by Andre Weil (more about that later) I had established that the family of one-relator Parafree groups in page 121 of Chandler and Magnus's book were not all isomorphic. How things have changed for the better.

Done