Whitehead, John Henry Constantine (1904-1960)

British mathematician who studied the more abstract areas of differential geometry, and of algebraic and geometrical topology.

Whitehead was born in Madras (now Chennai), India, and studied at Oxford, where he became professor in 1947.

Whitehead's early research was on differential geometry, and the application of differential calculus and differential equations to the study of geometrical figures.

Some of his most significant work was in the study of knots. In geometry a knot is a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional curve that because of its dimensional reduction (by topological distortion) appears to have nodes (to loop onto itself).

Whitehead wrote a textbook together with Oswald Veblen (1880-1960), Foundations of Differential Geometry (1932).