Peter John Hilton

Peter John Hilton (7 April 1923[1] – 6 November 2010[2]%29 was a British mathematician, noted for his contributions to homotopy theory and for code-breaking during the Second World War.[3]

Life:

Hilton was born in London, and educated at St Paul's School.[4] He won a scholarship to The Queen's College, Oxford in 1940.[4]

During World War II, as an undergraduate, Hilton was obliged to enrol in training with the Royal Artillery, and was scheduled for conscription in Summer 1942.[5] Instead, he was interviewed by a team touring universities looking for mathematicians with knowledge of German, and was offered a position in the Foreign Office without being told the nature of the work. The team was, in fact, recruiting on behalf of the Government Code and Cypher School. He accepted, and, aged 18, arrived at wartime codebreaking station Bletchley Park on 12 January 1942.[6]

He was initially put to work on Naval Enigma in Hut 8. In late 1942, he transferred to work on German teleprinter ciphers.[5] A special section known as the "Testery" had been formed in July 1942 to work on one such cipher, codenamed "Tunny", and Hilton was one of early members of the group.[7] His role was to devise ways to deal with changes in Tunny, and to liaise with another section working on Tunny, the "Newmanry", which complemented the hand-methods of the Testery with specialised codebreaking machinery.[7] Occasionally the same message was sent repeated, a major security blunder which Bletchley park called a "depth." Hilton derived great satisfaction from being able to look at the encoded texts coming from two separate teleprinters and from them work out the original German text.[8]

Hilton obtained his DPhil in 1949 from Oxford University under the supervision of John Henry Whitehead. His dissertation was titled, "Calculation of the Homotopy Groups of An2-polyhedra".[9]

In 1958, he became the Mason Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Birmingham.[4] He moved to the United States in 1962 to be Professor of Mathematics at Cornell University, a post he held until 1971.[1] From 1971 to 1973, he held a joint appointment as Fellow of the Battelle Seattle Research Center and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Washington. September 1, 1972, he was appointed Louis D. Beaumont University Professor at Case Western Reserve University. September 1, 1973, he took up the appointment. In 1982, he was appointed Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at Binghamton University, becoming Emeritus in 2003. Latterly he spent each spring semester as Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at the University of Central Florida. Hilton constructed the 51-letter palindrome, "Doc note, I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod."[10] Hilton's principal research interests were in algebraic topology, homological algebra, categorical algebra, and mathematics education. He published 15 books and over 600 articles in these areas, some jointly with colleagues. Hilton is featured in Mathematical People.[11] He died in Binghamton, New York.

Additional academic positions:

Lecturer at University of Cambridge, 1952 – 55 Senior Lecturer at University of Manchester, England, 1956 – 58 Mason Professor of Pure Mathematics, University of Birmingham, England, 1958 – 62 Visiting Professor at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule at Zürich, ETH Zurich, 1966 – 67, 1981 – 82, 1988 – 89 Visiting Professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, 1967 – 68 Visiting Professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Autonomous University of Barcelona, 1989 Professeur invité, University of Lausanne, in 1996 Professional memberships[edit source | editbeta]

American Mathematical Society Mathematical Association of America London Mathematical Society Cambridge Philosophical Society Royal Statistical Society Honorary member of the Mathematical Society of Belgium Honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa Society First-Vice-President of the Mathematical Association of America 1978–1980 Honors[edit source | editbeta]

Silver Medal, University of Helsinki, 1975 Doctor of Humanities (hon. causa), N. University of Michigan, 1977 Corresponding Member, Brazilian Academy of Sciences, 1979 Doctor of Science (hon. causa), Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1983 Doctor of Science (hon. causa), Autonomous University of Barcelona, 1989 In August, 1983, an international conference on algebraic topology was held, under the auspices of the Canadian Mathematical Society, to mark Professor Hilton’s 60th Birthday. Professor Hilton was presented with a Festschrift of papers dedicated to him (London Mathematical Society Lecture Notes, Volume 86, 1983). The American Mathematical Society has published the proceedings under the title ‘Conference on Algebraic Topology in Honor of Peter Hilton’[12] Hilton was selected in October, 1992, to deliver the invited lecture at the ‘Georges de Rham’ day at the University of Lausanne. An International Conference was held in Montreal in May, 1993, to mark the 70th birthday of Hilton. The proceedings were published as The Hilton Symposium, CRM Proceedings and Lecture Notes, Volume 6, American Mathematical Society (1994), edited by Guido Mislin. In 1994, Professor Hilton was the Mahler Lecturer of the Australian Mathematical Society. In the summers of 2001 and 2001, Professor Hilton was Visiting Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. In winter term of 2005 Professor Hilton received an appointment as Courtesy Faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences at University of South Florida. Positions held[edit source | editbeta]

Member, Phi Beta Kappa Speakers Panel Consultant, John Wiley and Sons, Inc. Consultant, SRA/McGraw Hill Publishing Company Consultant, Children’s Television Workshop Chairman, International Advisory Board, Institut des Sciences Mathématiques, Montréal Editor, Publicacions Matemàtiques Editor, Expositiones Mathematicae Editor, International Journal of Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences Editor, Mathematical Reports Recent positions[edit source | editbeta]

Member, American Mathematical Society Committee on Human Rights of Mathematics Chairman, Mathematical Association of America Committee on Award for Distinguished Service Chairman, Mathematical Association of America Committee on Award of Chauvenet Prize Member, Mathematical Association of America Panel on Remediation Member, Mathematical Association of America Panel on Public Representation Member, Advisory Committee on Mathematics and Science, Council for Basic Education Secretary, International Commission of Mathematical Instruction Editor, NICO (Brussels) Consultant, National Institute of Education, Department of Health Education And Welfare Chairman, United States National Research Council Committee on Applied Mathematical Training Member, United States Commission on Mathematical Instruction, National Research Council Chairman, Mathematical Association of America Committee on National Awards Principal Editor, Ergebnisse der Mathematik Series, published by Springer Verlag EdChairman, National Advisory Board, Comprehensive School Mathematics Project Member, Committee on the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics, Mathematical Association of America Chairman, National Research Council Committee on Graduate and Postdoctoral Training in Mathematics Chairman, United States Commission on Mathematical Instruction, National Research Council Member, Teacher Training Panel, Committee on the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics, Mathematical Association of America Joint Chairman, Cambridge Conference on School Mathematics Member, National Advisory Committee, Boston University Mathematics Project Member, Committee on Films, Mathematical Association of America Member, Subcommittee on Translations, Mathematical Association of America Member, Committee on Postdoctoral Fellowships, American Mathematical Society Chairman, New York State Department of Education Panel on Ph.D. Program in Mathematics (September, 1976) Editor, Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra Chairman, Committee to Select Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science (Book Award) Books[edit source | editbeta]

Peter J. Hilton, An introduction to homotopy theory, Cambridge Tracts in Mathematics and Mathematical Physics, no. 43, Cambridge, at the University Press, 1953.[13] ISBN 0-521-05265-3 . ISBN 978-0442028640. 0056289. Missing or empty |title= (help) Peter J. Hilton, Shaun Wylie, Homology theory: An introduction to algebraic topology, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1960.[14] ISBN 0-521-09422-4 MR0115161 Peter Hilton, Homotopy theory and duality, Gordon and Breach, New York-London-Paris, 1965 ISBN 0-677-00295-5 MR0198466 H.B. Griffiths and P.J. Hilton, "A Comprehensive Textbook of Classical Mathematics", Van Nostrand Reinhold, London, 1970, ISBN 978-0442028640 Peter J. Hilton, Guido Mislin, Joe Roitberg, Localization of nilpotent groups and spaces, North-Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam-Oxford, 1975. ISBN 0-444-10776-2 MR0478146 Peter Hilton, Jean Pedersen, Build your own polyhedra. Second edition, Dale Seymour Publications, Palo Alto, 1994. ISBN 0-201-49096-X Peter Hilton, Derek Holton, Jean Pedersen, Mathematical reflections: In a room with many mirrors. Corrected edition, Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1996. ISBN 0-387-94770-1 Peter J. Hilton, Urs Stammbach, A course in homological algebra. Second edition, Graduate Texts in Mathematics, vol 4, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1997. ISBN 0-387-94823-6 MR1438546 Peter Hilton, Derek Holton, Jean Pedersen, Mathematical vistas: From a room with many windows, Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics, Springer-Verlag, New York, 2010. ISBN 1-4419-2867-7 Peter Hilton, Jean Pedersen, A mathematical tapestry: Demonstrating the beautiful unity of mathematics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010. ISBN 0-521-12821-8