# Egbert Brieskorn

Egbert Brieskorn at the conference “Singularities and Computer Algebra” in Kaiserslautern , 2004

Egbert Valentin Brieskorn (born July 7, 1936 in Rostock ; † July 11, 2013 in Bonn ) was a German mathematician .

## Live and act

Brieskorn was the son of a mill construction engineer from East Prussia. He grew up in Freudenberg (Siegerland) and studied mathematics and physics in Munich and from 1959 at Bonn . In 1963 he received his doctorate in Bonn under Friedrich Hirzebruch on singularities ( on the differential topological and analytical classification of certain algebraic manifolds ), followed by his habilitation in 1968. From 1969 to 1973 he was a full professor in Göttingen . As an active leftist there he could not get along with his colleagues and he was also separated from his wife there, who was with the West German Radio Orchestra in Cologne, he gave up the professorship in Göttingen. From 1973 to 1975 he was at the Collaborative Research Center for Theoretical Mathematics in Bonn (since 1980 Max Planck Institute for Mathematics ). From 1975 until his retirement in 2001 he was a full professor in Bonn. There were also stays abroad and a. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (where he was a Moore Instructor in 1965 ) and at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES), where he had contacts with Alexander Grothendieck , at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), the University of Leiden , the University of Oxford , the University of Warwick , the University of Liverpool and the University of Nice .

Brieskorn dealt with the geometry of singularities in differential topology , with holomorphic maps and in algebraic geometry , with relationships e.g. B. on Dynkin diagrams of Lie groups , certain finite groups , theory of braids , exotic spheres (that is, with different differentiability structures), monodrome matrices of hypergeometric differential equations .

He has been involved in the peace movement since the 1970s, and in the environmental and nature conservation movement since the 1980s. He and his wife founded a foundation for the protection of endangered butterflies and later gave up a third of his job to devote himself to nature conservation.

Brieskorn worked on the edition project " Felix Hausdorff - Collected Works" of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and the Arts . In 1970 he was invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Nice ( Singular elements of semi-simple algebraic groups ).

His doctoral students include Horst Knörrer , Erhard Scholz , Wolfgang Ebeling , Kyoji Saito and Gert-Martin Greuel .

## Fonts (selection)

### Essays

• (with Anna and Frank Pratoussevitch Rothenhäusler) The combinatorial geometry of Singularities and Arnold's series E, Z, Q . In: Moscow, Mathematical Journal , Vol 3, Number 2, 2003, pp. 273–333.
• Is there a rebirth of quality in math? In: Science between Qualitas and Quantitas . Edited by Erwin Neuenschwander. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 2003, pp. 234-410, doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-0348-7994-1_12 .
• Singularities in the work of Friedrich Hirzebruch . In: Surveys in differential geometry , pp. 17–60, Surv. Differ. Geom., VII, Int. Press, Somerville MA, 2000. Papers dedicated to Atiyah, Bott, Hirzebruch and Singer. Edited by S.-T. Yau. Also published in: The Founders of Index Theory: Reminiscences of Atiyah, Bott, Hirzebruch, and Singer . Edited by S.-T. Yau. International Press (2003), 169-2002.
• Gustav Landauer and the mathematician Felix Hausdorff . In: Interview with Gustav Landauer. Symposium for the 125th birthday . Edited by Hanna Delf, Gert Mattenklott. In: Conditio Judaica , Volume 18. Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen 1997, ISBN 3-484-65118-0 , pp. 105-128.
• Automorphic sets and braids and singularities . In: Braids (Santa Cruz CA), 1986, pp. 45-115, Contemp. Math., 78, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence RI, 1988.
• Rational singularities of complex surfaces . In: Inventiones Mathematicae , Volume 4, 1986, p. 336
• The Milnorgitter of the exceptional unimodular singularities . In: Bonner Math.Schr. , 150, 1983, 225 pp.
• Milnor lattices and Dynkin diagrams . In: Singularities , Part 1 (Arcata CA), 1981, pp. 153-165, Proc. Sympos. Pure Math., 40, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence RI, 1983.
• The unfolding of exceptional singularities . Leopoldina Symposium: Singularities (Thuringia, 1978). Nova Acta Leopoldina (NF) 52 (1981), no.240, pp. 65-93.
• About dialectics in mathematics . In: M. Otte (ed.): Mathematicians on mathematics. Springer-Verlag, Berlin etc. 1974, pp. 221-286, doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-642-80866-1_9 .
• The hierarchy of the 1 -modular singularities . In: Manuscripta Math. , 27, 1979, no. 2, pp. 183-219.
• Singularities . In: Annual Report DMV , Volume 78, 1976, pp. 93–112
• The fundamental group of the space of the regular orbits of a finite complex reflection group . In: Uspekhi Mat. Nauka , Volume 30, No. 6, 1975, pp. 147-151
• (with G.-M. Greuel) Singularities of complete intersections . Manifolds. Tokyo 1973 (Proc. Internat. Conf., Tokyo, 1973), pp. 123-129. Univ. Tokyo Press, Tokyo 1975.
• (with Kyoji Saito) Artin groups and Coxeter groups . In: Matematika , Moscow, Volume 18, No. 6, 1974, pp. 56-79.
• Sur les groupes de tresses (d'après VI Arnold) . In: Séminaire Bourbaki , 24ème année, 1971/1972, Exp. 401, pp. 21-44 (French). Lecture Notes in Math. , Vol. 317, Springer, Berlin 1973, doi: 10.1007 / BFb0069274 .
• Vue d'ensemble on the problems of monodromy . Singularités à Cargèse (Rencontre sur les Singularités en Géométrie Analytique, Inst. Études Sci. De Cargèse, 1972), pp. 393-413. Asterisque Nos. 7 et 8, Soc. Math. France, Paris 1973 (French).
• (with Kyoij Saito) Artin groups and Coxeter groups . In: Inventiones Math. , Volume 17, 1972, p. 245
• Singular elements of semi-simple algebraic groups . In: Actes du Congrès International des Mathématiciens (Nice, 1970) , Tome 2, pp. 279-284. Gauthier-Villars, Paris 1971.
• The monodromy of the isolated singularities of hypersurfaces . In: Mathematika , Moskva, 15, No. 4, 1971, pp. 130-160.
• The fundamental group of the space of the regular orbits of a finite complex reflection group . (PDF) In: Inventiones Mathematicae , Volume 12, 1971, p. 57
• The monodromic group of isolated singularities of hypersurfaces . In: Manuscripta Mathematica , Volume 2, 1970, pp. 103-161
• with A. van de Ven: Some complex structures on products of homotopy spheres . In: Topology , 7, 1968, pp. 389-393.
• The resolution of rational singularities of holomorphic maps . (PDF) In: Mathematische Annalen , Volume 178, 1968, p. 255
• Examples of singular normal complex spaces which are topological manifolds . In: Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA , 55, 1966, pp. 1395-1397.
• Examples of the differential topology of the singularities . In: Inventiones Mathematicae , Volume 2, 1966, p. 1
• About the resolution of certain singularities of holomorphic maps . (PDF) In: Mathematische Annalen , Volume 166, 1966, p. 76
• About holomorphic bundles about${\ displaystyle P_ {n}}$${\ displaystyle P_ {1}}$ . In: Math. Ann. , 157, 1965, pp. 343-357.
• A sentence about the complex quadrics . In: Math. Ann. , 155, 1964, pp. 184-193.