John Brittain Little (born 1956) is a retired American mathematician, the author of several books in
algebraic geometry and the
history of mathematics. He is distinguished professor emeritus in the departments of mathematics and computer science at the
College of the Holy Cross.[1]
Education and career
Little was born January 15, 1956, in
Elmira, New York. He majored in mathematics at
Haverford College, graduating in 1976, and completed a Ph.D. at
Yale University in 1980.[2] His dissertation, Translation Manifolds and the Converse of Abel's Theorem, was supervised by Bernard Saint-Donat.[3]
He joined the College of the Holy Cross as an assistant professor in 1980, became an associate professor in 1986, and was promoted to full professor in 2003. He was Anthony and Renee Marlon Professor in the Sciences from 2012 to 2015.[2]
Ideals, Varieties, and Algorithms: An Introduction to Computational Algebraic Geometry and Commutative Algebra (with David Cox and Donal O'Shea, Springer, 1992; 4th ed., 2015)[5]
A Course in Linear Algebra (with David B. Damiano, Dover, 2011)[6]
Modeling and Data Analysis: An Introduction with Environmental Applications (American Mathematical Society,
Holy Cross Bookshelf 41, 2019)[8]
In his retirement he has shifted his interests to focus more on the
history of mathematics and the translation of works in ancient
Greek mathematics. His books in this area include: