View source for KSS Nambooripad — Biography

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{{Infobox scientist
|name              = KSS Nambooripad
|image             = 150px-Kssn.jpg
|image_size        = 150px
|caption           =
|birth_date        = 6 April 1935
|birth_place       = <br/>Puttumanoor <br/> Cochin, India
|death_date        =
|death_place       =
|residence         = Tripunithura, Kerala, India
|citizenship       = Indian
|nationality       =
|ethnicity         = Namboodiri
|fields            = Mathematician
|workplaces        = University of Kerala
|alma_mater        = Maharajas College, Ernakulam<br/> University of Kerala
|doctoral_advisor  = M. R. Parameswaran <br> B. R. Srinivasan<br> Y. Sitaraman
|academic_advisors =
|doctoral_students =
|notable_students  =
|known_for         = Seminal contributions to the structure theory of regular semigroups
|author_abbrev_bot =
|author_abbrev_zoo =
|influences        =
|influenced        =
|awards            =
|religion          = Hindu
|signature         = <!--(filename only)-->
|footnotes         =
}}
<small>{{color|#777;|(This biography is adopted from Wikipedia.)}}</small>

[[KSS_Nambooripad|&larr; Go Back]]

'''KSS Nambooripad''' (born 1935) is an Indian mathematician who has made fundamental contributions to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical structure structure] theory of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/regular_semigroup regular semigroups]. Nambooripad was also instrumental in popularising the {{TeX}} software in India and also in introducing and championing the cause of the [http://www/gnu.org free software movement] in India.

He was with the Department of Mathematics, University of Kerala, since 1976. He served the Department as its Head   from 1983  until his retirement from University service in 1995.
After retirement, he is associating with the academic and research activities of the Center for Mathematical Sciences, Thiruvananthapuram in various capacities.

==Early years==

Nambooripad was born on 6 April 1935 in Puttumanoor near [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochin Cochin] in central [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala Kerala]. He received traditional [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/veda vedic] education up to the age of fifteen after which he joined a  modern school offering formal education. He obtained the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B.Sc. B.Sc.(Hons)] degree of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Kerala University of Kerala] from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharajas_College Maharaja's College], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernakulam Ernakulam], in 1956. He spent a few years teaching mathematics in some privately managed colleges before joining the newly started Department of Mathematics, University of Kerala, as a research scholar in mathematics in 1965. He was initially under the supervision of Prof. M. R. Parameswaran. An year later he came under the guidance of Prof. B. R. Srinivasan. About two years later, consequent on the departure of  Prof. B. R. Srinivasan from University of Kerala, Nambooripad became a student of Prof. Y. Sitaraman. He was awarded the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ph_D Ph D] degree in 1974.

==Major contributions==
Nambooripad's basic contributions are in the structure theory of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/regular_semigroup regular semigroup]s. A [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/semigroup semigroup] is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_(mathematics) set] ''S'' together with an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/associativity associative] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/binary_operation binary opreation] in ''S''. A semigroup ''S'' is said to be regular if for every ''a'' in ''S'' there is an element ''b'' in ''S'' such that ''aba'' = ''a''. Nambooripad [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/axiom axiom]atically characterised the structure of the set of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/idempotent idempotent]s in a regular semigroup. He called a set having this structure a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/biordered_set biordered set]. "The axioms defining a biordered set are quite complicated. However, considering the general nature of semigroups, it is rather surprising that such a finite axiomatization is even possible."<ref name="putcha">{{cite book|last=Putcha|first=Mohan S|title=Linear algebraic monoids|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1988|series=London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series|volume=133|pages=121–122|isbn=978-0-521-35809-5}}</ref> A full treatment of the theory was published as a single paper number of the Memoirs of American mathematical Society in 1979.
"In the mid 70's A. H. Clifford became very much excited by the work of Nambooripad on the structure of regular semigroups in terms of  idempotent ordering and ''sandwich matrices'' and wrote several expository papers on Nambooripad structure theorem for regular semigroups".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Clifford_Alfred.html |title=Alfred Hoblitzelle Clifford|publisher=University of St Andrews, Scotland|accessdate=8 July 2009}}</ref>

He later developed an alternative approach to describe the structure of regular semigroups.  This particular work utilizes the abstract theory of cross-connections to provide a useful framework for studying various classes of regular semigroups.<ref>Zentralblatt MATH Database 1931–2009 9 [http://zmath.impa.br/cgi-bin/zmen/ZMATH/en/help.html?first=1&maxdocs=3&bi=0389+20053&type=pdf&bi_op=contains&format=complete Zbl.0707.2001] (Accessed on 7 July 2009)</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Nambooripad|first=K. S. S.|title=Structure of regular semigroups. II: Cross-connections|editor=A. M. Mathai|publisher=Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Trivandrum 15,  India|year=1989}}</ref>

==As a {{TeX}} populariser==
{{TeX}} was introduced into Kerala by  Nambooripad. After  a visit to the United States in early 1990s, he brought the {{TeX}} programme to Kerala in fourteen ﬂoppy disks. Nambooripad encouraged his students to learn and use {{TeX}}, especially for preparing their theses. One of his students was E Krishnan, one of the authors  of the {{LaTeX}} primer published as an electronic book by the Indian {{TeX}} User Group. Krishnan also played an important role in establishing the Free Software Foundation of India. Another person inspired by Nambooripad was CV Radhakrishnan who is running a company called River Valley Technologies since 1995 for typesetting of scientiﬁc journals  and books.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tug.org/interviews/interview-files/river-valley.html|title=Interview of Kaveh Bazargan and C V Radhakrishnan: Co-directors of River Valley Technologies|last=Walden|first=Dave |date=2006-06-28 |publisher={{TeX}} Users Group|accessdate=8 July 2009}}</ref>
Nambooripad was the prime catalyst for the formation of Indian {{TeX}} Users Group in 1998. He was the inaugural Chairman of the Group.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Rahtz|first=Sebastian|year=1998 |title=The inaugural meeting of TUG India|journal=TUGboat|volume=19 |issue=1|pages=9–11}} [http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb19-1/tb58raht.pdf]</ref>

==See also==
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nambooripad_order Nambooripad order]
* [http://www.cvr.cc/?p=411 KSSN: A Venerable Silent Mathematician]

==Selected publications==
#"Structure of regular semigroups - I". ''Memoirs of American Mathematical Society'', '''22''' (224). 1979.
#"The natural partial order on a regular semigroup". ''Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society'' '''23''' : 249-260. 1980.
#(with F. Pastijn) "V-regular semigroup". ''Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh'' '''88A''' : 275-291. 1981.
#(with F. Pastjin) "Regular involution semigroups". ''Semigroups Colloquia Mathematica Societatis János Bolyai, Szeged (Hungary)'' : 199-256. 1981.
#(with J. C. Meakin) "Coextensions of regular semigroups by rectangular bands - I". ''Transactions of American Mathematical Society'' '''269''':197-224. 1982.
#(with J. C. Meakin) "Coextensions of regular semigroups by rectangular bands - II". ''Transactions of American Mathematical Society'' '''272''' : 555-568. 1982.
#"Structure of regular semigroups - II : Cross-connections". Publication No.15. Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Thiruvananthapuram, India. 1989.
#"G-lattices". ''Proceedings of the Monash Conference on Semigroup Theory in honour of G. B. Preston held in July 1990'' : 224-241. World Scientific Publishing Co. 1991.
#(with E. Krishnan) "The semigroup of Fredholm operators". ''Forum Mathematicum'' '''5''' : 313-368. 1993.

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Mathematics]]
[[Category:KSS Nambooripad]]
[[Category:Semigroups]]