Benedict Hyman Gross is an American mathematician who is a professor at the
University of California San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
, the George Vasmer Leverett Professor of Mathematics Emeritus at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
, and former Dean of Harvard College.
[Curriculum vitae](_blank)
from Gross' web site at Harvard, retrieved 2010-04-21.
He is known for his work in
number theory
Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said, "Ma ...
, particularly the
Gross–Zagier theorem In mathematics, a Heegner point is a point on a modular curve that is the image of a quadratic imaginary point of the upper half-plane. They were defined by Bryan Birch and named after Kurt Heegner, who used similar ideas to prove Gauss's conjectu ...
on
L-function
In mathematics, an ''L''-function is a meromorphic function on the complex plane, associated to one out of several categories of mathematical objects. An ''L''-series is a Dirichlet series, usually convergent on a half-plane, that may giv ...
s of
elliptic curve
In mathematics, an elliptic curve is a smooth, projective, algebraic curve of genus one, on which there is a specified point . An elliptic curve is defined over a field and describes points in , the Cartesian product of with itself. I ...
s, which he researched with
Don Zagier.
Education and Professional career
Gross graduated from The
Pingry School
The Pingry School is a coeducational, independent, college preparatory country day school in New Jersey, with a Lower School (K–5) campus in the Short Hills neighborhood of Millburn, and a Middle (6–8) and Upper School (9–12) campus ...
, a leading independent school in New Jersey, in 1967 as the valedictorian. In 1971, he graduated
Phi Beta Kappa
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...
from Harvard University. He then received an M.Sc. from
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
as a
Marshall Scholar
The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is widely considered one of the most prestigious ...
in 1974 before returning to Harvard and completing his Ph.D. in 1978, under
John Tate John Tate may refer to:
* John Tate (mathematician) (1925–2019), American mathematician
* John Torrence Tate Sr. (1889–1950), American physicist
* John Tate (Australian politician) (1895–1977)
* John Tate (actor) (1915–1979), Australian a ...
.
After holding faculty positions at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
and
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
, Gross became a tenured professor at Harvard in 1985
and remained there subsequently, as Dean of Harvard College from 2003 to 2007.
Benedict Gross was the mathematical consultant for the 1980 film
''It's My Turn'' containing the famous scene in which actress
Jill Clayburgh
Jill Clayburgh (April 30, 1944 – November 5, 2010) was an American actress known for her work in theater, television, and cinema. She received the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Ac ...
, portraying a mathematics professor, impeccably proves the
snake lemma
The snake lemma is a tool used in mathematics, particularly homological algebra, to construct long exact sequences. The snake lemma is valid in every abelian category and is a crucial tool in homological algebra and its applications, for instance ...
.
Awards and honors
Gross is a
1986 MacArthur Fellow.
Gross, Zagier, and
Dorian M. Goldfeld won the
Cole Prize The Frank Nelson Cole Prize, or Cole Prize for short, is one of twenty-two prizes awarded to mathematicians by the American Mathematical Society, one for an outstanding contribution to algebra, and the other for an outstanding contribution to numbe ...
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, meeting ...
in 1987 for their work on the
Gross–Zagier theorem In mathematics, a Heegner point is a point on a modular curve that is the image of a quadratic imaginary point of the upper half-plane. They were defined by Bryan Birch and named after Kurt Heegner, who used similar ideas to prove Gauss's conjectu ...
. 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, meeting ...
.
Gross was elected as a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
in 1992 and as a member of the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...
in 2004.
He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2017.
He was named as a
Harvard University Professor
At Harvard University, the title of University Professor is an honor bestowed upon a very small number of its tenured faculty members whose scholarship and other professional work have attained particular distinction and influence. The University ...
from 2011 to 2016 for his distinguished scholarship and professional work.
Major publications
* Gross, Benedict H.; Harris, Joe. Real algebraic curves. Ann. Sci. École Norm. Sup. (4) 14 (1981), no. 2, 157–182.
* Gross, Benedict H. Heights and the special values of L-series. Number theory (Montreal, Que., 1985), 115–187, CMS Conf. Proc., 7, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 1987.
* Gross, Benedict H. A tameness criterion for Galois representations associated to modular forms (mod p). Duke Math. J. 61 (1990), no. 2, 445–517.
* Gross, Benedict H.; Prasad, Dipendra. On the decomposition of a representation of SOn when restricted to SOn−1. Canad. J. Math. 44 (1992), no. 5, 974–1002.
* Gross, Benedict H.; Zagier, Don B. Heegner points and derivatives of L-series. Invent. Math. 84 (1986), no. 2, 225–320.
* Gross, B.; Kohnen, W.; Zagier, D. Heegner points and derivatives of L-series. II. Math. Ann. 278 (1987), no. 1-4, 497–562.
* Gan, Wee Teck; Gross, Benedict H.; Prasad, Dipendra. Symplectic local root numbers, central critical L values, and restriction problems in the representation theory of classical groups. Sur les conjectures de Gross et Prasad. I. Astérisque No. 346 (2012), 1–109.
See also
*''
Fat Chance: Probability from 0 to 1''
*
Gross–Koblitz formula
References
External links
Benedict Gross's Harvard University homepage*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gross, Benedict
1950 births
Living people
20th-century American mathematicians
21st-century American mathematicians
Number theorists
Harvard University alumni
Alumni of the University of Oxford
Princeton University faculty
Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Study
Brown University faculty
Harvard University faculty
MacArthur Fellows
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Marshall Scholars
Members of the American Philosophical Society