Mikhail Leonidovich Gromov

For other people of the same name, see Gromov.
Mikhail Leonidovich Gromov

Mikhail Gromov
Born 23 December 1943
Boksitogorsk, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Residence France
Nationality Russian and French
Fields Mathematics
Institutions Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques
New York University
Alma mater Leningrad State University (PhD)
Doctoral advisor Vladimir Rokhlin
Doctoral students Denis Auroux
Christophe Bavard
François Labourie
Pierre Pansu
Abdelghani Zeghib
Known for Geometry
Notable awards Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry (1981)
Wolf Prize (1993)
Kyoto Prize (2002)
Nemmers Prize in Mathematics (2004)
Bolyai Prize (2005)
Abel Prize (2009)

Mikhail Leonidovich Gromov (also spelled Mikhael Gromov or Michael Gromov; Russian: Михаи́л Леони́дович Гро́мов; born 23 December 1943), is a French–Russian mathematician known for important contributions in many different areas of mathematics. He is considered a geometer in a very broad sense of the word. In 2009 he was awarded the Abel Prize "for his revolutionary contributions to geometry".

Biography

Mikhail Gromov was born on 23 December 1943 in Boksitogorsk, Soviet Union. His father was Leonid Gromov and his mother was Lea Rabinovitz.[1][2] Both his parents were pathologists.[3] Gromov was born during World War II, and his mother, who worked as a medical doctor in the Soviet Army, had to distance herself from the front line in order to give birth to him.[4] When Gromov was nine years old,[5] his mother gave him the book Numbers and Figures, by Hans Rademacher and Otto Toeplitz, a book that piqued his curiosity and had a great influence on him.[6][4]

Gromov studied for a doctorate (1973) in Leningrad, where he was a student of Vladimir Rokhlin.[7] He is now a permanent member of IHÉS, and a Professor of Mathematics at New York University.

Work

Gromov's style of geometry features a "coarse" or "soft" viewpoint, often analyzing asymptotic or large-scale properties.

His impact has been felt most heavily in geometric group theory, where he characterized groups of polynomial growth and created, along with Eliyahu Rips, the notion of hyperbolic group; symplectic topology, where he introduced pseudoholomorphic curves, and in Riemannian geometry. His work, however, has delved deeply into analysis and algebra, where he will often formulate a problem in "geometric" terms. For example, his homotopy principle (h-principle) on differential relations is the basis for a geometric theory of partial differential equations.

Gromov is also interested in mathematical biology.[8]

Prizes and honors

Prizes

Honors

See also

Books and other publications

Notes

  1. The International Who's Who, 1997–98. Europa Publications. 1997. p. 591. ISBN 978-1-85743-022-6.
  2. O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Mikhail Leonidovich Gromov", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.
  3. Gromov, Mikhail. "A Few Recollections", in Helge Holden; Ragni Piene (3 February 2014). The Abel Prize 2008–2012. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. pp. 129–137. ISBN 978-3-642-39448-5. (also available on Gromov's homepage: link)
  4. 4.0 4.1 Newsletter of the European Mathematical Society, No. 73, September 2009, p. 19
  5. Le Monde – Mikhaïl Gromov, le génie qui venait du froid (in French)
  6. Note: This book was translated to English as The Enjoyment of Mathematics, the original title in German is Von Zahlen und Figuren.
  7. http://cims.nyu.edu/newsletters/Spring2009.pdf
  8. http://www.ams.org/notices/201003/rtx100300391p.pdf Interview with Mikhail Gromov
  9. Abel Prize for 2009, Laureates 2009
  10. Toledo, Domingo (1996). "Review: Geometric group theory, Vol. 2: Asymptotic invariants of infinite groups, by M. Gromov" (PDF). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.) 33 (3): 395–398. doi:10.1090/s0273-0979-96-00669-6.
  11. Grove, Karsten (2001). "Review: Metric structures for Riemannian and non-Riemannian spaces, by M. Gromov" (PDF). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.) 38 (3): 353–363. doi:10.1090/s0273-0979-01-00904-1.
  12. McDuff, Dusa (1988). "Review: Partial differential relations, by Mikhael Gromov" (PDF). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.) 18 (2): 214–220. doi:10.1090/s0273-0979-1988-15654-6.
  13. Heintze, Ernst (1987). "Review: Manifolds of nonpositive curvature, by W. Ballmann, M. Gromov & V. Schroeder" (PDF). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.) 17 (2): 376–380. doi:10.1090/s0273-0979-1987-15603-5.

References

External links