Shing-Tung Yau - Böcker

A Fields medalist recounts his lifelong transnational effort to uncover the geometric shape—the Calabi-Yau manifold—that may store the hidden dimensions of our universe.  “An unexpectedly intimate look into a highly accomplished man, his colleagues and friends, the development of a new field of geometric analysis, and a glimpse into a truly uncommon mind.”—Nina MacLaughlin, Boston Globe“Engaging, eminently readable . . . For those with a taste for elegant and largely jargon-free explanations of mathematics, The Shape of a Life promises hours of rewarding reading.”—Judith Goodstein, American Scientist Harvard geometer and Fields medalist Shing-Tung Yau has provided a mathematical foundation for string theory, offered new insights into black holes, and mathematically demonstrated the stability of our universe. In this autobiography, Yau reflects on his improbable journey to becoming one of the world’s most distinguished mathematicians. Beginning with an impoverished childhood in China and Hong Kong, Yau takes readers through his doctoral studies at Berkeley during the height of the Vietnam War protests, his Fields Medal–winning proof of the Calabi conjecture, his return to China, and his pioneering work in geometric analysis. This new branch of geometry, which Yau built up with his friends and colleagues, has paved the way for solutions to several important and previously intransigent problems.With complicated ideas explained for a broad audience, this book offers readers not only insights into the life of an eminent mathematician, but also an accessible way to understand advanced and highly abstract concepts in mathematics and theoretical physics.

String theory says we live in a ten-dimensional universe, but that only four are accessible to our everyday senses. According to theorists, the missing six are curled up in bizarre structures known as Calabi-Yau manifolds. In The Shape of Inner Space , Shing-Tung Yau, the man who mathematically proved that these manifolds exist, argues that not only is geometry fundamental to string theory, it is also fundamental to the very nature of our universe. Time and again, where Yau has gone, physics has followed. Now for the first time, readers will follow Yau's penetrating thinking on where we've been, and where mathematics will take us next. A fascinating exploration of a world we are only just beginning to grasp, The Shape of Inner Space will change the way we consider the universe on both its grandest and smallest scales.

In the twentieth century, American mathematicians began to make critical advances in a field previously dominated by Europeans. Harvard’s mathematics department was at the center of these developments. A History in Sum is an inviting account of the pioneers who trailblazed a distinctly American tradition of mathematics—in algebraic geometry and topology, complex analysis, number theory, and a host of esoteric subdisciplines that have rarely been written about outside of journal articles or advanced textbooks. The heady mathematical concepts that emerged, and the men and women who shaped them, are described here in lively, accessible prose.The story begins in 1825, when a precocious sixteen-year-old freshman, Benjamin Peirce, arrived at the College. He would become the first American to produce original mathematics—an ambition frowned upon in an era when professors largely limited themselves to teaching. Peirce’s successors—William Fogg Osgood and Maxime Bôcher—undertook the task of transforming the math department into a world-class research center, attracting to the faculty such luminaries as George David Birkhoff. Birkhoff produced a dazzling body of work, while training a generation of innovators—students like Marston Morse and Hassler Whitney, who forged novel pathways in topology and other areas. Influential figures from around the world soon flocked to Harvard, some overcoming great challenges to pursue their elected calling.A History in Sum elucidates the contributions of these extraordinary minds and makes clear why the history of the Harvard mathematics department is an essential part of the history of mathematics in America and beyond.

This collection of papers constitutes a wide-ranging survey of recent developments in differential geometry and its interactions with other fields, especially partial differential equations and mathematical physics. This area of mathematics was the subject of a special program at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton during the academic year 1979-1980; the papers in this volume were contributed by the speakers in the sequence of seminars organized by Shing-Tung Yau for this program. Both survey articles and articles presenting new results are included. The articles on differential geometry and partial differential equations include a general survey article by the editor on the relationship of the two fields and more specialized articles on topics including harmonic mappings, isoperimetric and Poincare inequalities, metrics with specified curvature properties, the Monge-Arnpere equation, L2 harmonic forms and cohomology, manifolds of positive curvature, isometric embedding, and Kraumlhler manifolds and metrics.The articles on differential geometry and mathematical physics cover such topics as renormalization, instantons, gauge fields and the Yang-Mills equation, nonlinear evolution equations, incompleteness of space-times, black holes, and quantum gravity. A feature of special interest is the inclusion of a list of more than one hundred unsolved research problems compiled by the editor with comments and bibliographical information.

This book presents the proceedings of a conference on geometry and nonlinear partial differential equations dedicated to Professor Buqing Su in honor of his one-hundredth birthday. It offers a look at current research by Chinese mathematicians in differential geometry and geometric areas of mathematical physics. It is suitable for advanced graduate students and research mathematicians interested in geometry, topology, differential equations, and mathematical physics.

This volume consists of the proceedings of the Third International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians, held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in December 2004. The Congress brought together eminent Chinese and overseas mathematicians to discuss the latest developments in pure and applied mathematics.

This volume consists of the proceedings of the Third International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians, held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in December 2004. The Congress brought together eminent Chinese and overseas mathematicians to discuss the latest developments in pure and applied mathematics.

This volume represents selected proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians, held in Hangzhou, China. The Congress brought together eminent Chinese and overseas mathematicians to discuss the latest developments in pure and applied mathematics. Approximately fifteen hundred mathematicians participated in the Congress.

This volume contains the proceedings of the conference String-Math 2015, which was held from December 31, 2015-January 4, 2016, at Tsinghua Sanya International Mathematics Forum in Sanya, China. Two of the main themes of this volume are frontier research on Calabi-Yau manifolds and mirror symmetry and the development of non-perturbative methods in supersymmetric gauge theories. The articles present state-of-the-art developments in these topics. String theory is a broad subject, which has profound connections with broad branches of modern mathematics. In the last decades, the prosperous interaction built upon the joint efforts from both mathematicians and physicists has given rise to marvelous deep results in supersymmetric gauge theory, topological string, M-theory and duality on the physics side, as well as in algebraic geometry, differential geometry, algebraic topology, representation theory and number theory on the mathematics side.

One of the preeminent mathematicians of the past half century shows how physics and math were combined to give us the theory of gravity and the dizzying array of ideas and insights that has come from it Mathematics is far more than just the language of science. It is a critical underpinning of nature. The famed physicist Albert Einstein demonstrated this in 1915 when he showed that gravity-long considered an attractive force between massive objects-was actually a manifestation of the curvature, or geometry, of space and time. But in making this towering intellectual leap, Einstein needed the help of several mathematicians, including Marcel Grossmann, who introduced him to the geometrical framework upon which his theory rests.In The Gravity of Math, Steve Nadis and Shing-Tung Yau consider how math can drive and sometimes even anticipate discoveries in physics. Examining phenomena like black holes, gravitational waves, and the Big Bang, Nadis and Yau ask: Why do mathematical statements, derived solely from logic, provide the best descriptions of our physical world?The Gravity of Math offers an insightful and compelling look into the power of mathematics-whose reach, like that of gravity, can extend to the edge of the universe.

This volume presents a selection of work based upon lectures given by distinguished mathematicians at the Yau Mathematical Sciences Center at Tsinghua University, and at the Tsinghua Sanya International Mathematics Forum.Mathematics is very diversified and broad, but there are some basic underlying themes. The editors hope that the diversity of material presented here conveys the richness and unity of mathematics.

The fourteenth issue of the Notices of the International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians. Published semi-annually, the Notices bring news, research, and presentation of various perspectives, relevant to Chinese mathematics development and education.