Alfred Gray (mathematician)

Alfred Gray (October 22, 1939 – October 27, 1998) was an American mathematician whose main research interests were in differential geometry. He also made contributions in the fields of complex variables and differential equations.

Short biography

Alfred Gray was born in Dallas, Texas to Alfred James Gray & Eloise Evans and studied mathematics at the University of Kansas. He received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1964 and spent four years at University of California, Berkeley. From 1970–1998 he was a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park.

He died in Bilbao, Spain of a heart attack while working with students in a computer lab around 4 AM, on October 27, 1998.

Mathematical contributions

In the broad area of differential geometry, he made specific contributions in classifying various types of geometrical structures, such as (Kähler manifolds and almost Hermitian manifolds).

Gray introduced the concept of a nearly Kähler manifold, gave topological obstructions to the existence of geometrical structures, made several contributions in the computation of the volume of tubes and balls, curvature identities, etc. He published a book on tubes and is the author of two textbooks and over one hundred scientific articles. His books were translated into Spanish, Italian, Russian and German).

He was a pioneer in the use of computer graphics in teaching differential geometry (particularly the geometry of curves and surfaces) and of using electronic computation in teaching both differential geometry and ordinary differential equations.