R. H. Bing (October 20, 1914 – April 28, 1986)[1] was an American mathematician who worked mainly in the areas of geometric topology and continuum theory.
The term Bing-type topology was coined to describe the style of methods used by Bing.
Bing established his reputation early on in 1946, soon after completing his Ph.D. dissertation, by solving the Kline sphere characterization problem.
In 1951, he proved results regarding the metrizability of topological spaces, including what would later be called the Bing–Nagata–Smirnov metrization theorem.
This showed the existence of an involution on the 3-sphere with fixed point set equal to a wildly embedded 2-sphere, which meant that the original Smith conjecture needed to be phrased in a suitable category.
Proofs of the generalized Schoenflies conjecture and the double suspension theorem relied on Bing-type shrinking.
He did show that a simply connected, closed 3-manifold with the property that every loop was contained in a 3-ball is homeomorphic to the 3-sphere.
It has many applications, including a simplified proof of Moise's theorem, which states that every 3-manifold can be triangulated in an essentially unique way.
Before entering graduate school to study mathematics, Bing graduated from Southwest Texas State Teacher's College (known today as Texas State University), and was a high-school teacher for several years.
Thus she compromised by abbreviating it to R. H. (Singh 1986) It is told that once Bing was applying for a visa and was requested not to use initials.