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Peter Shalen
Peter B. Shalen (born c. 1946) is an American mathematician, working primarily in low-dimensional topology. He is the "S" in JSJ decomposition. Life He graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1962, and went on to earn a B.A. from Harvard College in 1966 and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1972. After posts at Columbia University, Rice University, and the Courant Institute, he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Shalen was a Sloan Foundation Research Fellow in mathematics (1977—1979). In 1986 he was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berkeley, California. He was elected as a member of the 2017 class of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society "for contributions to three-dimensional topology and for exposition". [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics with the major subdisciplines of number theory, algebra, geometry, and analysis, respectively. There is no general consensus among mathematicians about a common definition for their academic discipline. Most mathematical activity involves the discovery of properties of abstract objects and the use of pure reason to prove them. These objects consist of either abstractions from nature orin modern mathematicsentities that are stipulated to have certain properties, called axioms. A ''proof'' consists of a succession of applications of deductive rules to already established results. These results include previously proved theorems, axioms, andin case of abstraction from naturesome basic properties that are considered true starting points of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, advocacy and other programs. The society is one of the four parts of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics and a member of the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences. History The AMS was founded in 1888 as the New York Mathematical Society, the brainchild of Thomas Fiske, who was impressed by the London Mathematical Society on a visit to England. John Howard Van Amringe was the first president and Fiske became secretary. The society soon decided to publish a journal, but ran into some resistance, due to concerns about competing with the American Journal of Mathematics. The result was the ''Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society'', with Fiske as editor-in-chief. The de facto journal, as intended, was influential in in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Thurston
William Paul Thurston (October 30, 1946August 21, 2012) was an American mathematician. He was a pioneer in the field of low-dimensional topology and was awarded the Fields Medal in 1982 for his contributions to the study of 3-manifolds. Thurston was a professor of mathematics at Princeton University, University of California, Davis, and Cornell University. He was also a director of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute. Early life and education William Thurston was born in Washington, D.C. to Margaret Thurston (), a seamstress, and Paul Thurston, an aeronautical engineer. William Thurston suffered from congenital strabismus as a child, causing issues with depth perception. His mother worked with him as a toddler to reconstruct three-dimensional images from two-dimensional ones. He received his bachelor's degree from New College in 1967 as part of its inaugural class. For his undergraduate thesis, he developed an intuitionist foundation for topology. Following this, he r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Morgan (mathematician)
John Willard Morgan (born March 21, 1946) is an American mathematician known for his contributions to topology and geometry. He is a Professor Emeritus at Columbia University and a member of the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook University. Life Morgan received his B.A. in 1968 and Ph.D. in 1969, both from Rice University. His Ph.D. thesis, entitled ''Stable tangential homotopy equivalences'', was written under the supervision of Morton L. Curtis. He was an instructor at Princeton University from 1969 to 1972, and an assistant professor at MIT from 1972 to 1974. He has been on the faculty at Columbia University since 1974, serving as the Chair of the Department of Mathematics from 1989 to 1991 and becoming Professor Emeritus in 2010. Morgan is a member of the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook University and served as its founding director from 2009 to 2016. From 1974 to 1976, Morgan was a Sloan Research Fellow. In 2008, he was awarde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gordon–Luecke Theorem
In mathematics, the Gordon–Luecke theorem on knot complements states that if the complements of two tame knots are homeomorphic, then the knots are equivalent. In particular, any homeomorphism between knot complements must take a meridian to a meridian. The theorem is usually stated as "knots are determined by their complements"; however this is slightly ambiguous as it considers two knots to be equivalent if there is a self-homeomorphism taking one knot to the other. Thus mirror images are neglected. Often two knots are considered equivalent if they are '' isotopic''. The correct version in this case is that if two knots have complements which are orientation-preserving homeomorphic, then they are isotopic. These results follow from the following (also called the Gordon–Luecke theorem): no nontrivial Dehn surgery on a nontrivial knot in the 3-sphere can yield the 3-sphere. The theorem was proved by Cameron Gordon and John Luecke. Essential ingredients of the proo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simply Connected Space
In topology, a topological space is called simply connected (or 1-connected, or 1-simply connected) if it is path-connected and every path between two points can be continuously transformed (intuitively for embedded spaces, staying within the space) into any other such path while preserving the two endpoints in question. The fundamental group of a topological space is an indicator of the failure for the space to be simply connected: a path-connected topological space is simply connected if and only if its fundamental group is trivial. Definition and equivalent formulations A topological space X is called if it is path-connected and any loop in X defined by f : S^1 \to X can be contracted to a point: there exists a continuous map F : D^2 \to X such that F restricted to S^1 is f. Here, S^1 and D^2 denotes the unit circle and closed unit disk in the Euclidean plane respectively. An equivalent formulation is this: X is simply connected if and only if it is path-connected, and whene ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knot (mathematics)
In mathematics, a knot is an embedding of the circle into three-dimensional Euclidean space, (also known as ). Often two knots are considered equivalent if they are ambient isotopic, that is, if there exists a continuous deformation of which takes one knot to the other. A crucial difference between the standard mathematical and conventional notions of a knot is that mathematical knots are closed — there are no ends to tie or untie on a mathematical knot. Physical properties such as friction and thickness also do not apply, although there are mathematical definitions of a knot that take such properties into account. The term ''knot'' is also applied to embeddings of in , especially in the case . The branch of mathematics that studies knots is known as knot theory and has many relations to graph theory. Formal definition A knot is an embedding of the circle () into three-dimensional Euclidean space (), or the 3-sphere (), since the 3-sphere is compact. Two knots are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dehn Surgery
In topology, a branch of mathematics, a Dehn surgery, named after Max Dehn, is a construction used to modify 3-manifolds. The process takes as input a 3-manifold together with a link. It is often conceptualized as two steps: ''drilling'' then ''filling''. Definitions * Given a 3-manifold M and a link L \subset M, the manifold M drilled along L is obtained by removing an open tubular neighborhood of L from M. If L = L_1\cup\dots\cup L_k , the drilled manifold has k torus boundary components T_1\cup\dots\cup T_k. The manifold ''M drilled along L'' is also known as the link complement, since if one removed the corresponding closed tubular neighborhood from M, one obtains a manifold diffeomorphic to M \setminus L. * Given a 3-manifold whose boundary is made of 2-tori T_1\cup\dots\cup T_k, we may glue in one solid torus by a homeomorphism (resp. diffeomorphism) of its boundary to each of the torus boundary components T_i of the original 3-manifold. There are many inequivalent way ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyclic Surgery Theorem
In three-manifold, three-dimensional topology, a branch of mathematics, the cyclic surgery theorem states that, for a Compact space, compact, Connected space, connected, Orientability, orientable, Irreducibility (mathematics), irreducible three-manifold ''M'' whose boundary is a torus ''T'', if ''M'' is not a Seifert-fibered space and ''r,s'' are slopes on ''T'' such that their Dehn surgery, Dehn fillings have cyclic fundamental group, then the distance between ''r'' and ''s'' (the minimal number of times that two simple closed curves in ''T'' representing ''r'' and ''s'' must intersect) is at most 1. Consequently, there are at most three Dehn fillings of ''M'' with cyclic fundamental group. The theorem appeared in a 1987 paper written by Marc Culler, Cameron Gordon (mathematician), Cameron Gordon, John Luecke (mathematician), John Luecke and Peter Shalen.M. Culler, C. Gordon, J. Luecke, P. Shalen (1987). Dehn surgery on knots. The Annals of Mathematics (''Annals of Mathematics'') 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Luecke (mathematician)
John Edwin Luecke is an American mathematician who works in topology and knot theory. He got his Ph.D. in 1985 from the University of Texas at Austin and is now a professor in the department of mathematics at that institution. Work Luecke specializes in knot theory and 3-manifolds. In a 1987 paper Luecke, Marc Culler, Cameron Gordon, and Peter Shalen proved the cyclic surgery theorem. In a 1989 paper Luecke and Cameron Gordon proved that knots are determined by their complements, a result now known as the Gordon–Luecke theorem. Dr Luecke received a NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1992 and Sloan Foundation fellow in 1994. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, .... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cameron Gordon (mathematician)
Cameron Gordon (born 1945) is a Professor and Sid W. Richardson Foundation Regents Chair in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Texas at Austin, known for his work in knot theory. Among his notable results is his work with Marc Culler, John Luecke, and Peter Shalen on the cyclic surgery theorem. This was an important ingredient in his work with Luecke showing that knots were determined by their complement. Gordon was also involved in the resolution of the Smith conjecture. Andrew Casson and Gordon defined and proved basic theorems regarding strongly irreducible Heegaard splittings, an important concept in the modernization of Heegaard splitting theory. They also worked on the slice- ribbon conjecture, inventing the Casson-Gordon invariants in the process. Gordon was a 1999 Guggenheim Fellow. In 2005 Gordon was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fundamental Group
In the mathematical field of algebraic topology, the fundamental group of a topological space is the group of the equivalence classes under homotopy of the loops contained in the space. It records information about the basic shape, or holes, of the topological space. The fundamental group is the first and simplest homotopy group. The fundamental group is a homotopy invariant—topological spaces that are homotopy equivalent (or the stronger case of homeomorphic) have isomorphic fundamental groups. The fundamental group of a topological space X is denoted by \pi_1(X). Intuition Start with a space (for example, a surface), and some point in it, and all the loops both starting and ending at this point— paths that start at this point, wander around and eventually return to the starting point. Two loops can be combined in an obvious way: travel along the first loop, then along the second. Two loops are considered equivalent if one can be deformed into the other without breakin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
