Alexander Givental (russian: Александр Борисович Гивенталь) is a Russian-American
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
On ...
working in
symplectic topology
Symplectic geometry is a branch of differential geometry and differential topology that studies symplectic manifolds; that is, differentiable manifolds equipped with a closed, nondegenerate 2-form. Symplectic geometry has its origins in the Ha ...
and
singularity theory
In mathematics, singularity theory studies spaces that are almost manifolds, but not quite. A string can serve as an example of a one-dimensional manifold, if one neglects its thickness. A singularity can be made by balling it up, dropping it ...
, as well as their relation to topological string theories. He graduated from Moscow Phys-Math school number 2 (later renamed into Lyceum ) and then the
Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas
The Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas (russian: Российский государственный университет нефти и газа имени И. М. Губкина) is a public university in Moscow, Russia. The univer ...
, and he finally his Ph.D. under the supervision of
V. I. Arnold in 1987. He emigrated to the
USA
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
in
1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...
. He provided the first proof of the
mirror conjecture for
Calabi–Yau manifold
In algebraic geometry, a Calabi–Yau manifold, also known as a Calabi–Yau space, is a particular type of manifold which has properties, such as Ricci flatness, yielding applications in theoretical physics. Particularly in superstri ...
s that are complete intersections in toric ambient spaces, in particular for
quintic
In algebra, a quintic function is a function of the form
:g(x)=ax^5+bx^4+cx^3+dx^2+ex+f,\,
where , , , , and are members of a field, typically the rational numbers, the real numbers or the complex numbers, and is nonzero. In other words, a ...
hypersurface
In geometry, a hypersurface is a generalization of the concepts of hyperplane, plane curve, and surface. A hypersurface is a manifold or an algebraic variety of dimension , which is embedded in an ambient space of dimension , generally a Euclidea ...
s in P
4. He is now Professor of Mathematics at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
. As an extracurricular activity, he translates Russian poetry into English and publishes books, including his own translation of a textbook () in geometry by
Andrey Kiselyov
Andrey Petrovich Kiselyov (russian: Андрей Петрович Киселёв; December 12, 1852 – November 8, 1940) was a Russian and Soviet mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in the ...
and poetry of
Marina Tsvetaeva
Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva (russian: Марина Ивановна Цветаева, p=mɐˈrʲinə ɪˈvanəvnə tsvʲɪˈtaɪvə; 31 August 1941) was a Russian poet. Her work is considered among some of the greatest in twentieth century Russia ...
.
Givental is a father of two.
References
*.
Sumizdat publisher of English translation of ''Geometry''