Erik Christopher Zeeman

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Christopher Zeeman (1980)

Sir Erik Christopher Zeeman (born February 4, 1925 in Japan , † February 13, 2016 in Woodstock , Oxfordshire ) was a British mathematician who studied topology and the theory of dynamic systems .

Live and act

Zeeman was born in Japan in 1925 to a Dane from Aarhus and an Englishwoman, but his parents moved to England with him when he was one year old. From 1943 to 1947 he was an officer in the Royal Air Force . He was trained as a bomber navigator for missions over Japan, but was no longer used.

He then studied mathematics at Christ's College in Cambridge , where he received his doctorate in 1953 under Shaun Wylie (title of his dissertation: Dihomology ). After some time in Cambridge, where he also tried unsuccessfully for a year to solve the Poincaré conjecture (but later succeeded in proving it in 5 dimensions), he went to Princeton and Chicago (1954 with a Commonwealth scholarship). In 1955 he became a lecturer in Cambridge. In 1962/63 he spent at IHES near Paris.

In 1964 he became a founding professor of the mathematics faculty and the Mathematics Research Center of the new University of Warwick , which began teaching in 1965. In this role he was very successful. In his own words, he wanted to combine the close supervision of the students by tutors in Cambridge and Oxford with the flexibility of American universities. His appointments also made Warwick an active research center in topology. He stayed in Warwick until 1988, after which he was principal of Hertford College at Oxford University until 1995 and "Gresham Professor of Geometry" at Gresham College in London until 1994. Zeeman initially specialized in topology. Guest stays in Berkeley in 1966/67 with Stephen Smale and at IHES with René Thom (1969/70) - both were also at a Warwick Symposium in 1968/69 on this field of research - brought him into contact with the theory of dynamic systems, especially with disaster theory which he soon applied to many different areas of application (including evolution theory, behavioral research, sociology and, for example, his "Catastrophe Machine"). After that, he became known primarily as a proponent of the applications of catastrophe theory, which made his name there at least as well known as that of the "founder" René Thom.

In the topology he proved, among other things, that nodes can always be resolved in spheres in 5 dimensions. He also proved that the causality-preserving transformations of the Minkowski space are given by the inhomogeneous Lorentz group, or in other words that the special theory of relativity follows from the causal structure.

In 1975 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society , whose Faraday Medal he received in 1988. 1986 to 1988 he was President of the London Mathematical Society (LMS), whose Senior Whitehead Prize he received in 1982 and whose first lecturer he was in 1987. In 2006 he received the David Crighton Medal from the LMS and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. In 1991 he was ennobled. In 2005, the Warwick University Mathematics Building was renamed the Zeeman Building in his honor. In 1990 he was chairman of the committee that accompanied the establishment of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematics in Cambridge.

He was invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Vancouver in 1974 (Levels of structure in catastrophe theory illustrated by applications in the social and biological sciences), 1966 in Moscow (Knots of spheres in solid tori), 1962 (Topology of the brain) and 1954 (Dihomology).

Zeeman was known for his stimulating lectures. The 1978 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures aimed at teenagers ( Geometry and Perspective ), which were also televised, were the model for similar series of lectures across the UK. The LMS and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications even donated a "Zeeman Medal" to recognize contributions to popularizing mathematics. Among other things, he also dealt with the Antikythera Mechanism .

His PhD students include David Epstein , WBR Lickorish, and Terry Wall .

He had been married since 1960 - his wife is a jeweler - and had three sons and two daughters. His daughter Mary Lou Zeeman is also a mathematician.

Christopher Zeeman (2009)

Fonts

  • Catastrophe theory. Selected Papers, 1972-1977 . Addison-Wesley 1977.
  • Bifurcation and catastrophe theory. Contemporary Mathematics Vol. 9, 1981.
  • Catastrophe Theory. Scientific American, April 1976.
  • Geometry and perspective. 1987 (also as video).
  • Gyroscopes and boomerangs. Royal Institution 1989 (also as video).
  • Recommended theorems in 3-dimensional geometry. 2000.
  • Gears from the Greeks. Proc. Royal Institution Vol. 58, 1986, p. 139 (on the Antikythera Mechanism ).
  • Unknotting combinatorial balls. Ann. of Math. (2) 78 1963, 501-526.
  • The generalized Poincaré conjecture. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 67 1961, 270.

See also

Web links

swell

  1. ^ Sir Christopher Zeeman FRS, passed away 13/02/2016
  2. ↑ The "Stallings-Zeeman Theorem". Zeeman: The Poincaré Conjecture for . In: Topology of 3 manifolds and related topics. Prentice Hall 1962. See also Zeeman: The generalized Poincaré Conjecture. Bulletin American Mathematical Society Vol. 67, 1961, p. 270 (Fall of Dimension ). Stallings proved in 1962 and Smale in 1961 (shortly afterwards he expanded his proof to )
  3. ^ Zeeman: Evolution and catastrophe theory. In: Janine Bourriau: Understanding Catastrophe. Cambridge University Press 1992, ISBN 0-521-41324-9 , also in: The Linnean 21, No 3 (2005), pp. 22-34 ( Memento of the original from May 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.linnean.org
  4. ^ AMS: The Catastrophe Machine
  5. ↑ Unknotting spheres in 5 dimensions , Bulletin AMS Vol. 66, 1960, p. 198, and Unknotting Spheres. Annals of Mathematics, Vol. 72, 1960, p. 350.
  6. ↑ Zeeman: Causality Implies the Lorentz Group. Journal of Mathematical Physics, Vol. 5, April 1964, pp. 490-493.
  7. ↑ Bulletin London Mathematical Society Vol. 20, 1988, p. 545
personal data
SURNAME Zeeman, Erik Christopher
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Japan
DATE OF DEATH February 13, 2016
Place of death Woodstock , Oxfordshire