Egbert Valentin Brieskorn (7 July 1936, in

Rostock Rostock (), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (german: link=no, Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock), is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state, ...

– 11 July 2013, in

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

) was a German mathematician who introduced

Brieskorn sphere In mathematics, a Brieskorn manifold or Brieskorn–Phạm manifold, introduced by , is the intersection of a small sphere around the origin with the singular, complex hypersurface :x_1^+\cdots+x_n^=0 studied by . Brieskorn manifolds give examples ...

s and the

Brieskorn–Grothendieck resolution In 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 mo ...

Education

Brieskorn was born in 1936 as the son of a mill construction engineer in East Prussia. He grew up in Freudenberg (Siegerland) and studied mathematics and physics at the

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

and the

Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine U ...

. In 1963 he received his doctorate at Bonn under

Friedrich Hirzebruch Friedrich Ernst Peter Hirzebruch ForMemRS (17 October 1927 – 27 May 2012) was a German mathematician, working in the fields of topology, complex manifolds and algebraic geometry, and a leading figure in his generation. He has been described as ...

with thesis ''Zur differentialtopologischen und analytischen Klassifizierung gewisser algebraischer Mannigfaltigkeiten'', followed by his habilitation in 1968.

Career

From 1969 until 1973 he was professor ordinarius at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen and from 1973 to 1975 at the Sonderforschungsbereich Theoretische Mathematik in Bonn (since 1980 called the

Max-Planck-Institut für Mathematik The Max Planck Institute for Mathematics (german: Max-Planck-Institut für Mathematik, MPIM) is a prestigious research institute located in Bonn, Germany. It is named in honor of the German physicist Max Planck and forms part of the Max Planck ...

). From 1975 until his retirement as professor emeritus in 2001 he was a professor ordinarius at Bonn. He held temporary academic positions at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(MIT) (where in 1965 he was

Moore Instructor The job title of C. L. E. Moore instructor is given by the Math Department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology to recent math Ph.D.s hired for their promise in pure mathematics research. The instructors are expected to do both teaching and rese ...

), the

Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques The Institut des hautes études scientifiques (IHÉS; English: Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies) is a French research institute supporting advanced research in mathematics and theoretical physics. It is located in Bures-sur-Yvette, jus ...

(IHES), the

Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , a ...

(ETH Zürich), the

University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...

, the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, the

University of Warwick , mottoeng = Mind moves matter , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £7.0 million (2021) , budget = £698.2 million (2020� ...

, the

University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

, and the

University of Nice A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

Contributions

Brieskorn was one of the editors of the collected works of

Felix Hausdorff Felix Hausdorff ( , ; November 8, 1868 – January 26, 1942) was a German mathematician who is considered to be one of the founders of modern topology and who contributed significantly to set theory, descriptive set theory, measure theory, an ...

. In 1970 he was an

invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians This is a list of International Congresses of Mathematicians Plenary and Invited Speakers. Being invited to talk at an International Congress of Mathematicians has been called "the equivalent, in this community, of an induction to a hall of fame." ...

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard dialect, Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department in France. The Nice urban unit, agg ...

(''Singular elements of semi-simple algebraic groups''). His doctoral students include Horst Knörrer,

Peter Slodowy Peter Slodowy (12 October 1948, in Leverkusen – 19 November 2002, in Bonn) was a German mathematician who worked on singularity theory and algebraic geometry. He completed his Ph.D. thesis at the University of Regensburg in 1978 under the dire ...

Kyoji Saito Kyōji Saitō (齋藤恭司, Saitō Kyōji; born 25 December 1944) is a Japanese mathematician, specializing in algebraic geometry and complex analytic geometry. Education and career Saito received in 1971 his promotion Ph.D. from the Universi ...

, and Erhard Scholz.

Notes

References

External links

photos of E. Brieskorn

website Hausdorff-Edition

video interview with Egbert Brieskorn, Simons Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brieskorn, Egbert 20th-century German mathematicians 21st-century German mathematicians Algebraic geometers Differential geometers 1936 births 2013 deaths People from Rostock Topologists Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty Academic staff of the University of Göttingen Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni University of Bonn alumni