Noted Mathematician John R. Stallings Jr., 73, dies at Home in California

Noted Mathematician John R. Stallings Jr., 73, dies at Home in California. John Stallings, a University of Arkansas graduate credited with finding a proof for the Poincaré Conjecture, died Nov. 24, 2008 of prostate cancer.

He was a member of the faculty at the University of California–Berkeley since 1967. After retiring in 1994, he continued to work with graduate students. Dr. Stallings is survived by Marjorie Mulcahy, his longtime companion.

More than a century ago, Henri Poincaré proposed to define a sphere mathematically. He believed that a finite and connected three-dimensional space lacking any boundary could be stretched and shaped into a three-dimensional sphere. Since it was posed, the Poincaré Conjecture has been a central problem in topology.

After learning that Stephen Smale of Berkeley had proved the conjecture for surfaces of five dimensions or higher, Stallings devised a proof for dimensions of seven or higher.

In the paper “How Not to Prove the Poincaré Conjecture,” Stallings confessed that his goal was to find an ultimate final proof, wryly observing that his error was one of “an inhibition of reasoning by an underlying fear of being wrong. Techniques leading to the abandonment of such inhibitions should be cultivated by every honest mathematician.”

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