Jacob E. Goodman

Who is Jacob E. Goodman?

Jacob Eli Goodman is a geometer who has spent most of his career at the City College of New York, where he is now Professor Emeritus. In 1986 he and Richard Pollack were the founding co-editors-in-chief of the journal Discrete and Computational Geometry.

Together, he and Pollack introduced concepts such as "allowable sequence of permutations" and "wiring diagram" which have played a major role in discrete geometry, specifically in the study of arrangements of pseudolines and oriented matroids. His work with Pollack includes such results as the first nontrivial bounds on the number of order types and polytopes, and a generalization of the Hadwiger transversal theorem to higher dimensions In addition to the work above, Goodman is also known as the originator of the "pancake problem," an elementary question on permutations which he published under the pseudonym Harry Dweighter, and which gave rise to the concept of pancake sorting, which turns out to play a role in DNA rearrangements in molecular biology

Among Goodman's best-known work is the Handbook of Discrete and Computational Geometry, which he co-edited with Joseph O'Rourke.