Richard Bruck

Richard Hubert Bruck (1914 to 1991), usually cited as R. H. Bruck, was an American mathematician best known for his work in algebra, especially in its relation to projective geometry and combinatorics. He was born on December 26, 1914, studied at the University of Toronto and received his doctorate there in 1940 under Richard Brauer, with a thesis on the general linear group in a field of characteristic p. He spent most of his career as a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, advising at least 31 doctoral students. His 1949 paper with H. J. Ryser gave the Bruck-Ryser theorem on the possible orders of finite projective planes, now stated in the generalized Bruck-Ryser-Chowla form. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Chauvenet Prize in 1956, and died on December 18, 1991.