| William Schumacher Massey | |||||||
| Birth Date: | 20 August 1920 | ||||||
| Birth Place: | Granville, Illinois, United States | ||||||
| Death Place: | Hamden, Connecticut, U.S. | ||||||
| Fields: | Topology | ||||||
| Workplaces: | Brown University Yale University | ||||||
| Alma Mater: | University of Chicago Princeton University | ||||||
| Thesis Title: | Classification of mappings of an (n + 1)-dimensional space into an n-sphere | ||||||
| Thesis Url: | https://www.proquest.com/docview/301870231/ | ||||||
| Thesis Year: | 1948 | ||||||
| Doctoral Advisor: | Norman Steenrod | ||||||
| Known For: | Massey product Blakers–Massey theorem Exact couple | ||||||
| Spouse: | Ethel H. Massey | ||||||
| Children: | 3 | ||||||
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William Schumacher Massey (August 23, 1920[1] – June 17, 2017) was an American mathematician, known for his work in algebraic topology. The Massey product is named for him. He worked also on the formulation of spectral sequences by means of exact couples, and wrote several textbooks, including A Basic Course in Algebraic Topology .
William Massey was born in Granville, Illinois, in 1920, the son of Robert and Alma Massey, and grew up in Peoria. He was an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago. After serving as a meteorologist aboard aircraft carriers in the United States Navy for 4 years during World War II, he received a Ph.D. degree from Princeton University in 1949.[2] His dissertation, entitled Classification of mappings of an
(n+1)