Ralph Fox

Ralph Hartzler Fox ( born March 24, 1913 in Morrisville (Pennsylvania), † December 23, 1973 in Philadelphia ) was an American mathematician who mainly dealt with knot theory.

Fox attended Swarthmore College while he studied in Philadelphia piano at the Conservatory Leefson. His master's degree in mathematics, he graduated from the Johns Hopkins University. In 1939 he earned his doctorate under Solomon Lefschetz at Princeton University. Then he was at the Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Illinois and Syracuse University before he was back in 1945 as a professor at Princeton University, where he remained until his death. He was, inter alia, Visiting professor in Mexico City, Japan, Delft University of Technology and Stockholm University.

Fox engaged in low-dimensional topology, especially knot theory. His textbook created ( with his student Richard H. Crowell ) Introduction to Knot Theory, from lectures at Haverford College in 1956, was long a standard work. He reported on the work on knot theory also at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1950 in Cambridge (Massachusetts ).

His doctoral include Harold W. Kuhn, Barry Mazur, John Stallings, Lee Neuwirth and John Willard Milnor. He also ensures that the Greek mathematician Christos Papakyriakopoulos could work undisturbed in Princeton made ​​.

Fox was an active Quaker, was married and had a son. He was an accomplished Go player, who represented the United States in 1963 in Tokyo in the first international Go competition, reaching the level of 4th Dan.