Michael Atiyah headshot

Michael Atiyah

Past Faculty
School of Mathematics

Affiliation

Mathematics

From the American Philosophical Society:

“One of the world's greatest living mathematicians, Sir Michael Atiyah has made fundamental contributions to many areas of mathematics, but especially to topology, geometry and analysis. From his first major contribution—topological K-theory—to his more recent work on quantum field theory, Sir Michael has been influential in the development of new theoretical tools and has supplied far-reaching insights. He is a notable collaborator, with his name linked with other outstanding mathematicians through their joint research. A superb lecturer, he possesses the ability to explain sophisticated mathematics in a simple geometric way.”

From the Abel Prize Foundation:

“The second Abel Prize has been awarded jointly to Michael Francis Atiyah and Isadore M. Singer. The Atiyah-Singer index theorem is one of the great landmarks of twentieth-century mathematics . . . . the culmination and crowning achievement of a more than one-hundred-year-old evolution of ideas, from Stokes’s theorem, which students learn in calculus classes, to sophisticated modern theories like Hodge’s theory of harmonic integrals and Hirzebruch’s signature theorem. The problem solved by the Atiyah-Singer theorem is truly ubiquitous. In the forty years since its discovery, the theorem has had innumerable applications, first in mathematics and then, beginning in the late 1970s, in theoretical physics: gauge theory, instantons, monopoles, string theory, the theory of anomalies, etc.”

Abel Prize Laureate, 2004

American Philosophical Society, "Michael Atiyah" (1991)

Fields Medalist, 1966

Dates at IAS

Member
School of Mathematics
Fall
Member
School of Mathematics
Fall
Faculty
School of Mathematics
Member
School of Mathematics
Member
School of Mathematics
Member
School of Mathematics
Fall
Member
School of Mathematics

Degrees

Cambridge University
Ph.D.
1955

Honors

1978
Foreign Member: US NAS
1978
French Acad
1977
Univ of Durham
1977
Leopoldina Acad
1975
Swedish Royal Acad
1970
Univ of Bonn
1969
Hon DSc: Warwick Univ
1968
AAAS
1966
Fields Medal
1962
FRS
1960
Royal Medal of Royal Soc

Appointments

Science Board (Science Research Council)
Govt Ctee of Enquirey in Math Teaching