Walter Wilson Stothers

Walter Wilson Stothers (8 November 1946 – 16 July 2009) was a British mathematician who proved the Mason-Stothers theorem in the early 1980s.

He was the third and youngest son of a family doctor in Glasgow and a mother, who herself had graduated in mathematics in 1927. He attended Allan Glen's School which was a secondary school in Glasgow which specialised in science education. From 1964 to 1968 he was a student in the Science Faculty of the University of Glasgow graduating with a First Class Honours degree.

In September 1968 he married Andrea Watson before beginning further studies at Peterhouse, Cambridge from where he had received a "Jack Scholarship".

Under the supervision of Peter Swinnerton-Dyer, Stothers studied for a Ph.D. in Number theory at the University of Cambridge from 1968 to 1971. He obtained his doctorate in 1972 with a Ph.D. thesis entitled "Some Discrete Triangle Groups".

His main achievement was proving the Mason-Stothers theorem in 1981.

References

• Cohen, Stephen D. (2010). "Walter Wilson Stothers (1946–2009)". Glasgow Mathematical Journal. 52 (3): 711–715. doi:10.1017/S0017089510000534. ISSN 0017-0895.
• Ramon Garcia, Stephan; J. Miller, Steven (13 June 2019). 100 Years of Math Milestones: The Pi Mu Epsilon Centennial Collection. American Mathematical Soc. p. 375. ISBN 978-1-4704-3652-0. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)

Further reading

• Stothers, W. W. (1981). "Polynomial Identities and Hauptmoduln". The Quarterly Journal of Mathematics. 32 (3): 349–370. doi:10.1093/qmath/32.3.349. ISSN 0033-5606.