Joan Birman

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Joan S. Lyttle Birman , née Joan Sylvia Lyttle, (born May 30, 1927 in New York City ) is an American mathematician who deals with low-dimensional topology, especially with knot theory.

Birman received her BA in Mathematics from Barnard College, Columbia University in 1948 and her Masters in Physics from Columbia University in 1950. She worked as a systems analyst in the aviation industry until 1955, when she took time off to raise her three children. In 1961 she began while at Wilhelm Magnus with their work for the promotion, in 1968 at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences took place (Braid groups and Their relation to mapping class groups). From 1968 to 1971 she was Assistant Professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology and from 1972 Associate Professor. From 1973 she was Professor of Mathematics at Barnard College, Columbia University, where she has been Professor Emeritus since 2004. In 1987 she was at the Institute for Advanced Study and in 1991 at IHES . From 2004 to 2007 she was Research Professor at Columbia University. She was also a visiting professor in Paris, Jerusalem (Hebrew University) and at the Technion in Haifa , where she has been an honorary doctor since 1997.

Birman is known for her work on knot theory, theory of braids , mapping class groups, and 3-manifolds . She gave, among other things, the laudation for the recipient of the Fields Medal Vaughan Jones at the ICM 1990, on whose new knot invariants she also worked. In 1998, she was with Martin Hirsch a new unknot algorithm.

She is an honorary member of the Moscow Mathematical Society, a member of the European Mathematical Society and the New York Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society . From 1974 to 1976 she was a Sloan Research Fellow . In 1994/95 she was a Guggenheim Fellow. In 1996 she received the Chauvenet Prize for New points of view in knot theory (Bulletin of the AMS, vol. 28, 1993, p 253). In 2005 she received the New York Mayor's Award for Excellency in Science and Technology. In 2012 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

From 1950 until his death in 2016 she was married to the theoretical physicist Joseph L. Birman , with whom she has two sons and a daughter. In 1990 she donated the Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize for women in mathematics in memory of her sister Ruth Lyttle Satter .

Fonts (selection)

  • Braids, links and mapping class groups. Annals of Mathematical Studies, Princeton 1975.
  • Recent developments in braid and link theory. Mathematical Intelligencer Vol. 13, No. 1, 1991, p. 52.
  • Birman: New points of view in knot theory. Bulletin AMS 1993.
  • On braid groups. Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 22 1969 41-72.
  • Mapping class groups and their relationship to braid groups. Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 22 1969 213-238.
  • with Hugh Hilden : On isotopies of homeomorphisms of Riemann surfaces. Ann. of Math. (2) 97: 424-439 (1973).
  • with Alexander Lubotzky , John McCarthy : Abelian and solvable subgroups of the mapping class groups. Duke Math. J. 50 (1983), no. 4, 1107-1120.
  • with Robert Williams : Knotted periodic orbits in dynamical systems. I. Lorenz's equations. Topology, 22, no. 1, 47-82 (1983).
  • with Caroline Series : Geodesics with bounded intersection number on surfaces are sparsely distributed. Topology 24 (1985), no. 2, 217-225 ( theorem of Birman Series )
  • with Hans Wenzl : Braids, link polynomials and a new algebra. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 313 (1989) no. 1, 249-273.
  • with Willia Menasco : Studying links via closed braids. I. Pacific J. Math. 154 (1992) no. 1, 17-36. II. Topology Appl. 40 (1991) no. 1, 71-82. III. Pacific J. Math. 161 (1993) no. 1, 25-113. IV. Invent. Math. 102 (1990) no. 1, 115-139. V. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 329 (1992) no. 2, 585-606. VI. Pacific J. Math. 156 (1992) no. 2, 265-285.
  • with Xiao-Song Lin : Knot polynomials and Vassiliev's invariants. Invent. Math. 111 (1993) no. 2, 225-270.
  • with Ki Hyoung Ko , Sang Jin Lee : A new approach to the word and conjugacy problems in the braid groups. Adv. Math. 139 (1998) no. 2, 322-353.

literature

  • Dan Margalit: The mathematics of Joan Birman, Notices of the AMS, March 2019

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joan Birman, Michael Hirsch: A new algorithm for recognizing the unknot, Geometry and Topology, Volume 2, 1998, pp. 178-220
personal data
SURNAME Birman, Joan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Birman, Joan S. Lyttle
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH May 30, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , New York