Simon Donaldson facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Simon Donaldson
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Donaldson in 2009
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Simon Kirwan Donaldson
20 August 1957 Cambridge, England
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| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Pembroke College, Cambridge (BA) Worcester College, Oxford (DPhil) |
| Known for | Topology of smooth (differentiable) four-dimensional manifolds Donaldson theory Donaldson theorem Donaldson–Thomas theory Donaldson–Uhlenbeck–Yau theorem K-stability K-stability of Fano varieties< Yau–Tian–Donaldson conjecture |
| Awards | Junior Whitehead Prize (1985) Fields Medal (1986) Royal Medal (1992) Crafoord Prize (1994) Pólya Prize (1999) King Faisal International Prize (2006) Nemmers Prize in Mathematics (2008) Shaw Prize in Mathematics (2009) Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics (2014) Oswald Veblen Prize (2019) Wolf Prize in Mathematics (2020) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Topology |
| Institutions | Imperial College London Stony Brook University Institute for Advanced Study Stanford University University of Oxford |
| Thesis | The Yang–Mills Equations on Kähler Manifolds (1983) |
| Doctoral advisor | Michael Atiyah Nigel Hitchin |
| Doctoral students | Oscar Garcia Prada Dominic Joyce Dieter Kotschick Graham Nelson Paul Seidel Ivan Smith Gábor Székelyhidi Richard Thomas Michael Thaddeus |
Sir Simon Kirwan Donaldson (born 20 August 1957) is a famous English mathematician. He is known for his important work on the shapes and structures of four-dimensional spaces. He also studies a field called Kähler geometry, which connects different areas of math.
Currently, he works at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics in New York. He is also a professor at Imperial College London.
Contents
About Simon Donaldson
Simon Donaldson was born in Cambridge, England. His father was an electrical engineer, and his mother also studied science. Simon loved math from a young age.
He earned his first degree in mathematics from Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1979. Then, he started his advanced studies at Worcester College, Oxford. His main teachers were Nigel Hitchin and Michael Atiyah.
While still a student, Simon made a huge discovery in 1982. This discovery made him famous in the math world. He published his findings in a paper in 1983. His teacher, Michael Atiyah, said the paper "stunned the mathematical world."
Simon's work focused on understanding four-dimensional shapes. These shapes are called "manifolds" in math. He used special tools from physics, like "instantons," to study them. His research showed that many four-dimensional shapes do not have a "smooth structure." This was a big surprise to mathematicians.
After getting his PhD from Oxford University in 1983, Simon continued his research. He worked at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Later, he became a professor at Oxford University and then at Imperial College London. In 2014, he joined Stony Brook University in the United States.
Awards and Honors
Simon Donaldson has received many top awards for his mathematical work. These awards show how important his discoveries are.
- In 1985, he won the Junior Whitehead Prize.
- In 1986, he received the Fields Medal. This is one of the highest honors a mathematician can get. He was only 28 years old at the time.
- In 1994, he was given the Crafoord Prize in Mathematics.
- In 2006, he won the King Faisal International Prize for science. This was for his work connecting math theories to physics.
- In 2009, he shared the Shaw Prize in Mathematics. This was for his work on geometry in 3 and 4 dimensions.
- In 2014, he received the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics. This award recognized his new ways of understanding 4-dimensional shapes.
- In 2019, he won the Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry.
- In 2020, he received the Wolf Prize in Mathematics.
He was also made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1986. This is a very respected group of scientists. In 2012, he was given the title of Sir by the Queen for his services to mathematics.
What Simon Donaldson Studies
Simon Donaldson's research uses advanced math to solve problems in geometry. He often uses tools from "analysis," which is a branch of math dealing with change and rates. His main areas of study include:
- Gauge Theory: This is a field that comes from physics. It helps describe forces and particles. Simon uses it to understand geometric shapes.
- 4-Manifolds: These are four-dimensional spaces. We live in a 3D world, but mathematicians study spaces with more dimensions. Simon's work helped us understand these complex shapes better.
- Complex Differential Geometry: This area combines geometry with complex numbers.
- Symplectic Geometry: This is another type of geometry that is important in physics.
One of his most famous results is called Donaldson's Theorem. It says that if a certain type of 4-dimensional shape has a specific property, then its structure must be very simple. This showed that many shapes that seem similar are actually very different when you look at their "smooth" properties.
More recently, Simon has been working on a big problem in complex geometry. This problem connects "stability" conditions of shapes to the existence of special types of "Kähler metrics." He worked with other mathematicians, Xiuxiong Chen and Song Sun, to solve a major part of this problem in 2012. Their work was published in several difficult papers.
The Fano Manifolds Conjecture
In 2019, Simon Donaldson, along with Xiuxiong Chen and Song Sun, won the Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry. They won it for proving a long-standing idea about "Fano manifolds."
This idea, or "conjecture," said that a Fano manifold has a special kind of metric (a way to measure distances and shapes) if and only if it is "K-stable." This problem had been studied for many years. Their solution was a huge breakthrough in geometry.
Selected Publications
Simon Donaldson has written many important papers and books.
Books
