Bertram Kostant
| Bertram Kostant | |
|---|---|
 Bertram Kostant at a workshop on “Enveloping Algebras and Geometric Representation Theory” in Oberwolfach, 2009 | |
| Born |
1928 (age 85–86) Brooklyn |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology University of California, Berkeley |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago |
| Doctoral advisor | Irving Segal |
| Doctoral students |
James Lepowsky Stephen Rallis James Harris Simons Moss Sweedler David Vogan |
| Known for |
Kostant partition function Kostant–Parthasarathy–Ranga Rao–Varadarajan determinants |
Bertram Kostant (born 1928) is a leading American mathematician.
Early life and education
Kostant grew up in New York City, where he graduated from the celebrated Stuyvesant High School in 1945.[1] He went on to obtain an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Purdue University in 1950. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1954, under the direction of Irving Segal, where he wrote a dissertation on representations of Lie groups.
Career in mathematics
After stints at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, and the University of California, Berkeley, he joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he remained until his retirement in 1993. Kostant's work has involved many of the most beautiful ideas in modern mathematics, such as representation theory, Lie groups, Lie algebras, homogeneous spaces, differential geometry and mathematical physics, particularly symplectic geometry. He has given several lectures on the Lie group E8.[2] He has been one of the principal developers of the theory of geometric quantization. His introduction of the theory of prequantization has led to the theory of quantum Toda lattices. The Kostant partition function is named after him.
His students include James Harris Simons, James Lepowsky, Moss Sweedler, David Vogan, and Birgit Speh. At present he has almost 90 mathematical descendants.
Awards and honors
Kostant's many honors include election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1978. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.[3]
See also
Notes
- ↑ "Professor Kostant's Homepage". MIT Math Department. Retrieved 2007-10-31.
- ↑ Bertram Kostant (2008-02-12). "On Some Mathematics in Garrett Lisi's 'E8 Theory of Everything'". UC Riverside mathematics colloquium. Retrieved 2008-06-15.
- ↑ List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society, retrieved 2013-01-27.
References
- Kostant's home page at MIT
- Bertram Kostant at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- Brylinski, Jean-Luc (editor) (1994). Lie Theory and Geometry, In Honor of Bertram Kostant. Boston, Birkhauser. ISBN 0-8176-3761-3.
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