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Lawrence C. Washington

American mathematician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ1809144 ↗
Source-derived summary

Lawrence Clinton Washington (born 1951 in Vermont) is an American mathematician at the University of Maryland who specializes in number theory.

Biography

Washington studied at Johns Hopkins University, where in 1971 he received his B.A. and master's degree. In 1974 he earned his PhD at Princeton University under Kenkichi Iwasawa with thesis Class numbers and

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extensions. He then became an assistant professor at Stanford University and from 1977 at the University of Maryland, where he became in 1981 an associate professor and in 1986 a professor. He held visiting positions at several institutions, including IHES (1980/81), Max-Planck-Institut für Mathematik (1984), the Institute for Advanced Study (1996), and MSRI (1986/87), as well as at the University of Perugia, Nankai University and the State University of Campinas. In 1979–1981 he was a Sloan Fellow.

Recognition

In 2011 he was awarded a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher award from the University of Maryland.

He was named to the 2023 class of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society, "for contributions to number theory, especially cyclotomic fields, and for mentoring at all levels".

Research

Washington wrote a standard work on cyclotomic fields. He also worked on p-adic L-functions.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Lawrence C. Washington” as american mathematician. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1951, 1971, 1974, 1977—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1951-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Lawrence, Washington and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american mathematician. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1809144. VIAF identifies the subject as 29597625. The Library of Congress control number is n82009240. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1951, 1971, 1974 and 1977.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Lawrence C. Washington” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.