Harish-Chandra FRS (11 October 1923 – 16 October 1983) was an

Indian American Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from India. The United States Census Bureau uses the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Native Americans, who have also historically been referred to ...

mathematician and physicist who did fundamental work in representation theory, especially

harmonic analysis Harmonic analysis is a branch of mathematics concerned with the representation of Function (mathematics), functions or signals as the Superposition principle, superposition of basic waves, and the study of and generalization of the notions of Fo ...

on semisimple Lie groups.

Early life

Harish-Chandra was born in

Kanpur Kanpur or Cawnpore ( /kɑːnˈpʊər/ pronunciation (help·info)) is an industrial city in the central-western part of the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. Founded in 1207, Kanpur became one of the most important commercial and military stations o ...

. He was educated at B.N.S.D. College, Kanpur and at the University of Allahabad. After receiving his master's degree in Physics in 1943, he moved to the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore for further studies under

Homi J. Bhabha Homi Jehangir Bhabha, (30 October 1909 – 24 January 1966) was an Indian nuclear physicist, founding director, and professor of physics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). Colloquially known as "Father of Indian nuclear pro ...

. In 1945, he moved to University of Cambridge, and worked as a research student under Paul Dirac. While at Cambridge, he attended lectures by Wolfgang Pauli, and during one of them pointed out a mistake in Pauli's work. The two were to become lifelong friends. During this time he became increasingly interested in mathematics. At Cambridge he obtained his PhD in 1947.

Honors and awards

He was 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 Nati ...

and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was the recipient of 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 number ...

of the American Mathematical Society, in 1954. The Indian National Science Academy honoured him with the Srinivasa Ramanujan Medal in 1974. In 1981, he received an honorary degree from Yale University. The mathematics department of V.S.S.D. College, Kanpur celebrates his birthday every year in different forms, which includes lectures from students and professors from various colleges, institutes and students' visit to Harish-Chandra Research Institute. The Indian Government named the

Harish-Chandra Research Institute The Harish-Chandra Research Institute (HRI) is an institution dedicated to research in mathematics and theoretical physics, located in Allahabad (officially Prayagraj), Uttar Pradesh in India. Established in 1975, HRI offers masters and doctora ...

, an institute dedicated to Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, after him. Robert Langlands wrote in a biographical article of Harish-Chandra: He was also a recipient of the Padma Bhushan in 1977.

References

Publications

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Bibliography

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External links

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Biography
by Roger Howe 1923 births 1983 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians People from Kanpur University of Allahabad alumni Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Institute for Advanced Study faculty Indian emigrants to the United States 20th-century Indian mathematicians 20th-century Indian physicists Indian theoretical physicists Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in literature & education Indian Institute of Science alumni American academics of Indian descent Scientists from Uttar Pradesh {{India-physicist-stub