Announced study results on 2 types of ‘Ree Group’ and about 20 simple groups Published articles in the global famous journals for the first time as Korean mathematician, a regular member of Royal Canadian Academy
(Late) Lee Rim-hak
Honorary professor, UBC (1922~2005)
- Academic background
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1939 ~ 1944
Graduated Department of Physics, Kyungsung Imperial University
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1953 ~ 1955
Ph. D at British Columbia University
- Professional career
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1946 ~ 1953
Professor, Department of Mathematics, Seoul National University
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1955 ~ 2005
Professor and honorary professor, British Columbia University
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1963 ~ 2005
Member, Royal Canadian Academy
Left a big footprint to the world history of mathematics with the ‘Ree Group’ theory named after him
Professor Rim Hak Ree is a master of group theory who discovered ‘Ree Group’, a new simple group, in the 1960s and the world-renowned mathematician that Korea has ever produced.
His research results on two types of ‘Ree Group’ discovered by him and 20 or more existing simple groups made him a great leader in the world’s mathematical community. The mathematical community at that time was studying the classification of simple groups intensively, and he identified how the groups composed by the Chevalley’s method in 1957 were related to classical groups of Jordan-Dickson and proved that they had the predicted features. Furthermore, he discovered two infinite families of simple groups and named them the ‘Ree Group’ after his name. As his idea was clear and quite effective, it affected the international mathematics community remarkably. The global mathematician in France, J. Dieudonne regarded him as one of the 21 Great Mathematicians who created the ‘Group Theory’ fundamentally in his book ‘Panorama of Pure Mathematics.’
Mathematician who published an article in the world-famous journal for the first time as Korean.
His study on the ‘Ree Group’ became an important achievement in the global mathematics history, enough to produce about 90 articles for 10 years from 1984. Even now the ‘Ree Group’ is an important research subject. When searching the journal of mathematic review published by the American Mathematical Society, there are over 40 articles including ‘Ree Group’ in their title among the recent articles and there are over 100 articles including the ‘Ree Group’ in the articles and reviews, which is considered to demonstrate the importance of the ‘Ree Group.’
His theory of ‘Ree Group’ was described even in Japan Iwanami Mathematics Dictionary and his name was listed as the only Korean mathematician in the UK mathematics archive and mathematical history site. With the recognition of his achievements, he was elected as a regular member of the Royal Canadian Academy at 40 years old in 1963.
Appointed as professor of the mathematics department, Kyungsung University (present Seoul National University) in 1946 after liberation, he read an article of Max Zorn, a famous mathematician and sent an answer for the unsolved question found in Bulletin of American Mathematical Society, an international mathematical journal found in a used book store. This article was published in the same journal in 1949 without his knowing it. It was a good article enough that professor Bochner of Princeton University, a famous hermeneutic, commented that he was interested in the question solved by him, which was recorded as an event that an article was published in the global famous journal for the first time as Korean mathematician.
Built a foundation of Korean mathematical education community after liberation
Professor Ree taught abstract algebra, advanced number theory, and topology at Seoul National University from 1946 to 1953. At that time the differential and integral calculus used a textbook in English written by Granville Smith Longely and professor Rim Hak Ree published its partial translational version in 1948 for the first time. Even after that, he made a great contribution to the founding of the mathematical education community in Korea after liberation, writing university textbooks such as ‘advanced algebra’, ‘differential calculus’ and ‘plane analytic geometry’ and publishing several translated books. After quitting the Seoul National University in 1953 and going abroad to Canada, he obtained a doctoral degree under the instruction of Jennings at British Columbia University in 2 years. Then he performed active research activities, publishing a total 16 articles until 1960 during working at British Columbia University.