Charles C. Pugh

Charles Chapman Pugh (born June 16, 1940) is an American mathematician who researches dynamical systems. Pugh received his PhD under Philip Hartman of Johns Hopkins University in 1965, with the dissertation The Closing Lemma for Dimensions Two and Three. He has since been a professor, now emeritus, at the University of California, Berkeley.

In 1967 he published a closing lemma named after him in the theory of dynamical systems. The lemma states: Let f be a diffeomorphism of a compact manifold with a nonwandering point x. Then there is (in the space of diffeomorphisms, equipped with the ${\displaystyle C^{1}}$ topology) in a neighborhood of f a diffeomorphism g for which x is a periodic point. That is, by a small perturbation of the original dynamical system, a system with periodic trajectory can be generated.

In 1970 he was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Nice, delivering a talk on Invariant Manifolds.