Adolph Winkler Goodman

Adolph Winkler Goodman (1915 to 2004) was an American mathematician who worked in number theory, graph theory and above all the theory of univalent functions. He is remembered for Goodman's conjecture, a 1948 proposal about the coefficients of multivalent (p-valent) functions that first appeared in his Columbia University dissertation and then in a closely following paper. After Louis de Branges proved the Bieberbach conjecture in 1985, Goodman's conjecture was regarded as the most interesting open challenge in that part of complex analysis, and Goodman and his coauthors settled it affirmatively for some classes of p-valent functions. His 1957 paper on univalent functions and nonanalytic curves and his 1968 survey of open problems on univalent and multivalent functions led to the two-volume book Univalent Functions. He was also a prolific teacher and textbook author, writing college and high school texts including Analytic Geometry and the Calculus and the five-volume Algebra from A to Z. He retired in 1993, became a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in 1995 and died in 2004.