Dror Bar-Natan ( he, דרוֹר בָר-נָתָן; born January 30, 1966) is a professor at the

University of Toronto Department of Mathematics The University of Toronto Department of Mathematics is an academic department within the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto. It is located at the university's main campus at the Bahen Centre for Information Technology. The ...

, Canada. His main research interests include

knot theory In the mathematical field of topology, knot theory is the study of knot (mathematics), mathematical knots. While inspired by knots which appear in daily life, such as those in shoelaces and rope, a mathematical knot differs in that the ends are ...

finite type invariant In the mathematical theory of knots, a finite type invariant, or Vassiliev invariant (so named after Victor Anatolyevich Vassiliev), is a knot invariant that can be extended (in a precise manner to be described) to an invariant of certain singular ...

s, and Khovanov homology.

Education

Bar-Natan earned his

B.Sc. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

in mathematics at

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...

in 1984. After performing his military service as a teacher, he went to study at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in 1987. He obtained his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in mathematics from Princeton in 1991, under the direction of

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

Edward Witten Edward Witten (born August 26, 1951) is an American mathematical and theoretical physicist. He is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Witten is a researcher in string theory, q ...

Professorship

After holding a

Benjamin Peirce Benjamin Peirce (; April 4, 1809 – October 6, 1880) was an American mathematician who taught at Harvard University for approximately 50 years. He made contributions to celestial mechanics, statistics, number theory, algebra, and the philoso ...

Assistant Professorship 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 higher le ...

for four years from 1991–95, he returned to Israel, and became Associate Professor at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

. He moved to the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

in 2002, and was promoted to Full Professor in 2006.Dror Bar-Natan — Curriculum Vitae
/ref>

Personal life

Bar-Natan holds US, Israeli, and Canadian citizenship, and currently resides in Canada. Bar-Natan originally refused to take the Canadian citizenship oath because it would require him to swear allegiance to royalty. He later decided to become a citizen but publicly announced his intention to renounce the oath immediately after becoming a citizen, which he did so in front of the presiding judge at his citizenship ceremony on November 30, 2015. From his marriage to mathematician

Yael Karshon Yael Karshon (born 1964) is an Israeli and Canadian mathematician who has been described as "one of Canada's leading experts in symplectic geometry". She works as a professor at the University of Toronto Mississauga and Tel Aviv University . Edu ...

he has two sons, Assaf and Itai.

Research

In 1999, Bar-Natan collaborated on a paper with the goal of mathematically refuting claims made in '' The Bible Code'' by

Michael Drosnin Michael Alan Drosnin (January 31, 1946 – June 9, 2020) was an American journalist and author, best known for his writings on the Bible Code, which is a purported set of secret messages encoded within the Hebrew text of the Torah. Drosnin was bo ...

that hidden messages could be deciphered from within the bible. In particular, the paper demonstrated that practically any "code" could be found within the Bible, thereby debunking Drosnin's "discovery" of specific codes. This work is outside the main scope of his academic interests, although he is known for it because of the popularity of ''The Bible Code''.Bar-Natan, D with Brendan McKay,

Gil Kalai Gil Kalai (born 1955) is the Henry and Manya Noskwith Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, Professor of Computer Science at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, and adjunct Professor of mathematics ...

and

Maya Bar-Hillel Maya Bar-Hillel ( he, מיה בר-הלל, born 1943) is a professor emeritus of psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Known for her work on inaccuracies in human reasoning about probability, she has also studied decision theory in conn ...

; Statistical Science 14-2 (1999) 150-173. Academically, Bar-Natan has made significant contributions to the formalization of Khovanov homology. Bar-Natan was a member of the Editorial Board for the journal '' Compositio Mathematica'' for 10 years, until 2010.

Selected publication

References

External links

*
Citizenship disavowal website
maintained by Bar-Natan {{DEFAULTSORT:Bar-Natan, Dror 20th-century Israeli mathematicians 21st-century Israeli mathematicians Topologists University of Toronto faculty Tel Aviv University alumni Princeton University alumni Harvard University faculty Canadian mathematicians 1966 births Living people