Rimhak Ree

Rimhak Ree (; December 18, 1922 – January 9, 2005), alternatively Im-hak Ree, was a Korean Canadian mathematician. He contributed in the field of group theory, most notably with the concept of the Ree group in .

Early life Ree received his early education in Hamhung, Kankyōnan-dō, Korea, Empire of Japan (now in North Korea). He attended the Hamhung #1 Public Ordinary School , and in 1934 entered the Hamhung Public High School . He went on to Keijō Imperial University, where he studied physics, which was an unusual choice for Koreans at the time. Ree graduated in 1944 with a physics degree; he then went to Fengtian, Manchukuo (today Shenyang, Liaoning in the People's Republic of China) to work for an aircraft company.

Career After the surrender of Japan in 1945 and the end of Japanese rule in Korea, Ree returned to his hometown of Hamhung and briefly took up a professorship at the invitation of the newly established Kim Il-sung University, but soon escaped to South Korea and was appointed as an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at Seoul National University in early 1947. Ree solved the problem and sent the solution to Max Zorn. When Zorn received Ree's solution, it was sent to the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society to be published in 1949 with the title 'On a problem of Max Zorn' and become the first mathematical paper published by a Korean in an international journal. He completed his dissertation on Witt algebras in 1955. His thesis advisor was Stephen Arthur Jennings. Following the award of his doctorate, Ree was appointed as a lecturer at Montana State University, despite facing several problems regarding his labour permission and nationality.

In mid-1955, Ree received a grant from the National Research Council of Canada and he worked with Jennings on Lie algebras. In 1958, he published a solution to a problem of Paul Erdős regarding a certain class of irrational numbers. Ree's two most renowned papers were written from 1960 to 1961, in which he suggested a Lie type group over a finite field now named after him. In 1962 after being promoted to an assistant professor in mathematics at University of British Columbia, he was granted an academic year which he spent in Yale. He was elected a member of Royal Society of Canada in 1964.

Personal life Ree had two daughters Erran and Hiran from his first marriage. He later married Rhoda Mah, a doctor and the daughter of John Ming Mah, who owned Northwest Food Products, a manufacturers of noodles. She would go on to work as staff physician for Canadian Pacific Airlines. Rimhak and Rhoda's first son Ronald was followed by another son Robert in December 1971. They also had a third son Richard. As he refused and his passport was revoked, Ree became de facto stateless. He later received permanent residency in Canada and continued to work at the University of British Columbia.

He suffered from Alzheimer's disease in his later years. Ree died on January 9, 2005, in Vancouver, Canada.

Publications