Robert Wilson's research
Most of my research work is in group theory,
so if you don't know what that is, you had better
exit now - (the same applies
if you think that group theory is another name for
group therapy).
If there is a main theme, then it is the study of the
sporadic simple groups, which are 26
of the most interesting groups in existence. (I know that
is a controversial statement - many of my colleagues
would say that they are THE most interesting groups, full stop.)
They range in size from
M11, with 7920 elements, to
the Monster, with
808017424794512875886459904961710757005754368000000000
elements.
Maximal subgroups
In my PhD thesis, written in 1982 under the
supervision of Professor J. H. Conway in
Cambridge, I determined the
maximal subgroups of the Suzuki group,
the Conway groups Co2 and
Co1, and the
Rudvalis group,
and some other less interesting groups.
Of course, my thesis is full of mistakes, some (but not all) of
which were corrected in the published papers.
(If you are interested, you can find the references
here.)
The ATLAS
At the same time, I worked on the
ATLAS of finite groups,
whose publication in 1985 is probably largely
responsible for the fact that I still have an academic job.
Modular characters
More recently I have worked on calculating modular
character tables (or more accurately, Brauer character
tables) of various groups, particularly some of the
moderate-sized sporadic groups. This culminated in the
publication of the `Atlas of Brauer Characters'
(the ABC 
)
by C.Jansen, K.Lux, R.Parker and myself in 1995.
Computational group theory
A large proportion of my research is in some way
computational. I find my computers tend to be more
reliable than my brain.
WWW Atlas
A recent research project, started in 1995,
is to build up an
Atlas of Group Representations on the WWW.
(This builds on an earlier, more reliable, but far less extensive atlas, which is no longer
available.)
The Monster
On 29th May 1997 the first computer construction of the Monster was
completed, as the culmination of years of work by Richard Parker,
Peter Walsh, Steve Linton, and myself.
Publications
If you are interested,
you can have a look at my
list of publications.
Return to my
home-page.
Last updated 05.07.02
R.A.Wilson@bham.ac.uk