Zvonimir Janko (26 July 1932 – 12 April 2022) was a Croatian mathematician who was the eponym of the Janko groups, sporadic simple groups in group theory. The first few sporadic simple groups were discovered by Émile Léonard Mathieu, which were then called the Mathieu groups. It was after 90 years of the discovery of the last Mathieu group that Zvonimir Janko constructed a new sporadic simple group in 1964. In his honour, this group is now called J<sub>1</sub>. This discovery launched the modern theory of sporadic groups and it was an important milestone in the classification of finite simple groups.
Biography
Janko was born in Bjelovar, Croatia. He studied at the University of Zagreb where he received Ph.D. in 1960, with advisor Vladimir Devidé. The title of the thesis was Dekompozicija nekih klasa nedegeneriranih Rédeiovih grupa na Schreierova proširenja (Decomposition of some classes of nondegenerate Rédei Groups on Schreier extensions), in which he solved a problem posed by László Rédei. He then taught physics at a high school in Široki Brijeg in Bosnia and Herzegovina.