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Yuval Flicker

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Yuval Zvi Flicker (Template:Lang-he; born 1955 in Israel) is an American mathematician. His primary research interests include automorphic representations.[1]

He received his PhD degree from the University of Cambridge in 1978. His thesis advisor was Alan Baker, in the area of transcendental number theory.[1][2]

He taught at Princeton University, Columbia University, Harvard University and Ohio State University, where served as a Professor. He also worked with David Kazhdan.[1]

Yuval Flicker is the author of a number of books including:

  • Automorphic Representations of Low Rank Groups (2006)[3]
  • Automorphic Forms and Shimura Varieties of PGSp(2) (2005)[4]
  • Matching of Orbital Integrals on GL(4) and GSp(2) (1999)[5]

Genealogy

Father – Eliyahu, or Eli, Flicker (dancer, painter, furniture designer) [eliflicker.jpg] – born Jan. 30, 1926 at Iaşi. Eli’s father, Godel (wife: Hannah), served in the Austro-Hungarian Army. When Eli was one year old, his family moved to Bucharest. At age 17, in 1942, a year after the Bucharest pogrom and the MV Struma was sunk, Eli immigrated from the Bucharest ghetto to the Mandate Palestine, bringing his parents and siblings to join him within a year. Eli served in the British army during World War II, and in the Israel Defense Forces during the Israeli War of Independence (1948), the Sinai campaign (1956), and the Six Day War (1967). A grandchild of his only sister – Aviva -- is Doron Matalon, Miss Israel 2014 [Miss.jpg].

Mother – Sarah – born Nov. 5, 1934 in Neve Tzedek to Moshe (Mosze) Zamek of Warsaw (birth: May 15, 1905), who immigrated to Tel Aviv in 1926. Moshe served in the Jewish Brigade of the British army in WWII. His ancestors known to be interred in Warsaw include: father Jankel (Yaakov) son of Simcha son of Yehuda Leib son of Betzalel and Nehama. Moshe’s mother: Bracha, and all his siblings: Leon, Shaya, Simcha, Paula, Rosa, perished in The Holocaust: Moshe Zamek grave, details unknown. Sarah’s mother, Esther, née Gdanski, sister of Avraham Eliezer Gdanski -- an author and a coffeehouse and restaurant owner on Rothschild Boulevard corner of Hertzel st. in Tel-Aviv. Their parents were Zvi Gdanski and Razel Bluma Lida, a 7th generation descendant of David ben Aryeh Leib of Lida (c. 1650 – 1696), appointed in 1682 the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Amsterdam, who wrote works of rabbinic literature.

"Yuval" means a brook (as a noun) and “will be led” (as a verb) in Hebrew. According to Genesis 4:19-21, Yuval was “father of all violin and harp players” (יוּבָל הוּא הָיָה אֲבִי כָּל־תֹּפֵשׂ כִּנּוֹר וְעוּגָב) -- or God of Music in Greek or Babylonian translation, a son of Lemech -- a descendant of Cain – and Adah. Zvi (German spelling; Tzvi in English; Hirsch in German, deer in English) is mother’s maternal grandfather’s name.

Early influences

Flicker entered primary school Hillel in Ramat Gan at the age of 5 at his mother’s insistence. Became religiously anti-religious after doing his Bar Mitzvah at age 13 against his will. Deeply impressed by the Six Day War of 1967. Preferred to concentrate on Literature at Blich High school, but agreed to Math and Physics at teachers’ insistence. Participated in Weizmann Institute summer 1970 camp for Science oriented youth. Expelled from High school at the end of the 3rd year (out of four) for misbehavior in 1971.

Flicker was admitted to Tel Aviv University, where he tried, but did not enjoy studying Physics. He completed his BA in two years 1971-1973 in Math (major) with minor in Philosophy (which turned out to be incompatible with his interest in Friedrich Nietzsche, Knut Hamsun, Pinchas Sadeh). He was influenced by visiting Nottingham Number Theoretician Heini Halberstam.

Flicker was admitted to graduate study at the Hebrew University Institute of Mathematics. In the summer of 1973, after completing military training, he volunteered to fight on the Egyptian front during the Yom Kippur War. Under the command of General Avraham Adan he reached the Sweet Water Canal and El-Adabiya Port in Egypt, trapping the Egyptian 3 rd Army. He then shattered his right knee during an operation in the Jordan Valley. This led to a stay in the orthopedic department of Hadassah Medical Center at Ein Kerem in Jerusalem. Flicker was awarded a Trinity College, Cambridge Bursar Scholarship to study at DPMMS, Cambridge.

Flicker completed his Master’s degree in 1973-1974 at the Hebrew University Institute of Mathematics, his advisor was Hillel Furstenberg. Disappointed with the return to power of Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan at the 1973 elections, Flicker moved to Cambridge, where he studied Part III of the Mathematical Tripos in 1974-1975. This was followed by a Ph.D. thesis in 1975-1978, at Trinity College, Cambridge, entitled Linear Forms on Abelian Varieties over Local Fields, under the supervision of Fields Medalist Alan Baker. Thesis resulted in five publications. A significant part of the final year was spent in Israel studying automorphic representations, in particular of the Metaplectic group, and the trace formula for GL(2).

Mathematical Odyssey

Work on "Automorphic forms on covering groups of GL(2)" was completed as Flicker was a 1978-1979 member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, at the invitation of Robert Langlands. In the years 1979-1981 Flicker was a Ritt Assistant Professor at Columbia University. Yet much of this time was spent at IHES at the invitation of Pierre Deligne, and at Université de Paris VII. From 1981 to 1985 he was an assistant Professor at Princeton University, at the invitation of Goro Shimura. During these years he developed the trace formula in the context of automorphic representations on low rank groups – including regularizing weighted orbital integrals, computing singular terms – and its applications: establishing base change liftings for GL(3), U(2), U(3), and the symmetric square lifting from SL(2) to PGL(3).

Invited by David Kazhdan to visit Harvard University in 1985-1987, he developed a simple form of the trace formula for automorphic representations with a single cuspidal component, using it in the theory of liftings, establishing ("Langlands") correspondence of Galois and admissible (locally) or automorphic (with one cuspidal component, globally) representations of GL(n) over a function field, and extending the metaplectic correspondence from GL(2) to GL(n).

From 1987 to 2015 Flicker served as a Professor at the Ohio State University, teaching graduate courses on various topics in representation theory, algebraic geometry, and arithmetic. He developed topics using the "relative trace formula"; Galois cohomology – some with his OSU postdoc Sujatha Ramdorai, and C. Scheiderer; orbital integrals; Hecke algebras. Flicker wrote several books uniting his work in various papers. Along with Pierre Deligne he developed a counting technique -- originating with the work of Vladimir Drinfeld when n=2 -- for Galois and automorphic representations for GL(n) over a function field.

During this period he visited and lectured at the Universities of Mannheim, Bielefeld, Münster, Essen, Köln, HU Berlin supported by a Humboldt Stiftung and SFB; at MPI in Bonn; at University of Tokyo; at TIFR Bombay and later Mumbai; at University of Santiago, Chile; at University of Buenos Aires supported by a Fulbright grant; at the Chinese Academy of Science; at University of Singapore – where he learned Scuba Diving and Windsurfing -- supported by an NUS Senior Fellowship; at the Hebrew University Jerusalem supported by Lady Davis Fellowship and Schonbrunn Professorship, and Simons Fellowship; at IMPA Rio de Janeiro; at University of Erzincan, Turkey – where he scaled Mount Ararat -- supported by TÜBİTAK.

Engagement

A sympathizer of the Canaanite movement, lover of Judaean Desert, and critique of the slow pace of Israeli development of Judea and Samaria, Flicker contributed to the advancement of Ariel University and the wider community of Ariel, Samaria, as a Professor and as a Milonguero style AT instructor under a pseudonym. In addition to native Hebrew, and English, he speaks German, French and AT.

References

  1. ^ a b c "Yuval Flicker CV" (PDF). Fulbright.edu. Retrieved 22 January 2010.
  2. ^ Yuval Zvi Flicker at the Mathematics Genealogy Project.
  3. ^ World Scientific, ISBN 978-981-256-803-8.
  4. ^ World Scientific, ISBN 978-981-256-403-0.
  5. ^ Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society 655, AMS, ISBN 978-0-8218-0959-4.
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