Friedrich Hirzebruch

Friedrich Hirzebruch
Friedrich Hirzebruch in 1980 (picture courtesy MFO)
Born	Friedrich Ernst Peter Hirzebruch (1927-10-17)17 October 1927 Hamm, Province of Westphalia, Weimar Germany
Died	27 May 2012(2012-05-27) (aged 84)
Nationality	German
Alma mater	University of Münster ETH Zürich Institute for Advanced Study Princeton University
Known for	Hirzebruch-Riemann-Roch theorem
Awards	Wolf Prize (1988) Lobachevsky Medal (1989)
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	University of Bonn Max-Planck-Institut für Mathematik
Doctoral advisor	Heinrich Behnke Heinz Hopf
Doctoral students	Egbert Brieskorn Detlef Gromoll Klaus Jänich Matthias Kreck Don Bernard Zagier Lothar Göttsche

Friedrich Ernst Peter Hirzebruch (17 October 1927 - 27 May 2012) was a German mathematician, working in the fields of topology, complex manifolds and algebraic geometry, and a leading figure in his generation. He has been described as "the most important mathematician in the Germany of the postwar period."

Biography

Hirzebruch was born in Hamm, Westphalia. He studied at the University of Münster from 1945–1950, with one year at ETH Zürich.

He then had a position at Erlangen, followed by the years 1952–54 at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. After one year at Princeton University 1955–56, he was made a professor at the University of Bonn, where he remained, becoming director of the Max-Planck-Institut für Mathematik in 1981. More than 300 people participated in the event in ceremony of his 80th birthday at Bonn in 2007.

The Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem (1954) for complex manifolds was a major advance and quickly became part of the mainstream developments around the classical Riemann–Roch theorem; it was also a precursor of the Atiyah–Singer index theorem. Hirzebruch's book Neue topologische Methoden in der algebraischen Geometrie (1956) was a basic text for the 'new methods' of sheaf theory, in complex algebraic geometry. He went on to write the foundational papers on topological K-theory with Michael Atiyah, and collaborate with Armand Borel on the theory of characteristic classes. In his later work he provided a detailed theory of Hilbert modular surfaces, working with Don Zagier.

Hirzebruch was a foreign member of numerous academies and societies, including the United States National Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the French Academy of Sciences. In 1980/81 he delivered the first Sackler Distinguished Lecture in Israel.

He died on 27 May 2012.

Honours

Amongst many other honours, Hirzebruch was awarded a Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 1988, a Lobachevsky Medal in 1989.

The government of Japan awarded him the Order of the Sacred Treasure in 1996.

Hirzebruch won an Einstein Medal in 1999, and received the Cantor medal in 2004.

See also

• Atiyah–Hirzebruch spectral sequence
• Hirzebruch signature theorem
• Hirzebruch surface

References

• Europa Publications (2003). The International Who's Who 2004. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-85743-217-6. Retrieved 24 April 2010.

External links

• Friedrich Hirzebruch at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• MacTutor entry for Hirzebruch