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Jacob Palis Jr. (born 15 March 1940) is a Brazilian
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 ...
and
professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...
. Palis' research interests are mainly
dynamical systems and
differential equations. Some themes are
global stability and
hyperbolicity In mathematics, a hyperbolic metric space is a metric space satisfying certain metric relations (depending quantitatively on a nonnegative real number δ) between points. The definition, introduced by Mikhael Gromov, generalizes the metric properti ...
,
bifurcations,
attractor
In the mathematical field of dynamical systems, an attractor is a set of states toward which a system tends to evolve, for a wide variety of starting conditions of the system. System values that get close enough to the attractor values remain ...
s and
chaotic system
Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of scientific study and branch of mathematics focused on underlying patterns and deterministic laws of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, and were once thought to have ...
s.
Biography
Jacob Palis was born in
Uberaba, Minas Gerais. His father was a
Lebanese immigrant, and his mother was a
Syrian immigrant. The couple had eight children (five men and three women), and Jacob was the youngest. His father was a merchant, owner of a large store, and supported and funded the studies of his children. Palis said that he already enjoyed mathematics in his childhood.
[http://www.faperj.br/downloads/revista/Rio_Pesquisa_4_2008.pdf ]
At 16, Palis moved to Rio de Janeiro to study engineering at the
University of Brazil – now
UFRJ
The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro or University of Brazil (UFRJ; pt, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro or ') is a public university, public research university located in the state of Rio de Janeiro (state), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ...
. He was approved in first place in the entrance exam, but was not old enough to be accepted; he then had to take the university's entry exam again a year later, at which again he obtained first place. He completed the course in 1962 with honours and receiving the award for the best student.
In 1964, he moved to the United States. In 1966 he obtained his master's degree in mathematics under the guidance of
Stephen Smale 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 ...
, and in 1968 his PhD, with the thesis ''On Morse-Smale
Diffeomorphism
In mathematics, a diffeomorphism is an isomorphism of smooth manifolds. It is an invertible function that maps one differentiable manifold to another such that both the function and its inverse are differentiable.
Definition
Given two ...
s'', again with Smale as advisor.
In 1968, he returned to Brazil and became a researcher at the
Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada
The Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada (IMPA; en, National Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics) is widely considered to be the foremost research and educational institution of Brazil in the area of mathematics. It is loc ...
(IMPA) in
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...
, Brazil.
Since 1973 he has held a permanent position as professor at IMPA, where he was director from 1993 until 2003. He was Secretary-General of the
Third World Academy of Sciences
The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) is a merit-based science academy established for developing countries, uniting 1,000 scientists in some 70 countries. Its principal aim is to promote scientific capacity and excellence for sustainable deve ...
from 2004 to 2006, and elected its president in 2006 and remained on position till December 2012. He was also president of the
International Mathematical Union
The International Mathematical Union (IMU) is an international non-governmental organization devoted to international cooperation in the field of mathematics across the world. It is a member of the International Science Council (ISC) and supports ...
from 1999 to 2002. He was president of the
Brazilian Academy of Sciences
The Brazilian Academy of Sciences ( pt, italic=yes, Academia Brasileira de Ciências or ''ABC'') is the national academy of Brazil. It is headquartered in the city of Rio de Janeiro and was founded on May 3, 1916.
Publications
It publishes a lar ...
from 2007 to 2016. Palis has advised more than forty
PhD students so far from more than ten countries.
Awards and honors
Palis has received numerous medals and decorations. He is a foreign member of several academies of sciences, including the
United States 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 ...
, the
French Academy of Sciences and
German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (german: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founde ...
. In 2005 Palis received the
Legion of Honor.
He is a member of the
Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters ( no, Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway.
History
The Royal Frederick Unive ...
. In 2010 he was awarded the
Balzan Prize for his fundamental contributions in the mathematical theory of dynamical systems that has been the basis for many applications in various scientific disciplines, such as in the study of oscillations.
Notices of the AMS, Volume 58, Number 1, pages 66 and 67
/ref> He is also a recipient of the 1988 TWAS Prize
This is a list of recipients of the TWAS Prize, awarded annually by The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS).
Summary
Agricultural Sciences
Biology
Chemistry
Earth Sciences
Engineering Sciences
Mathematics
Medical Sc ...
.
Selected publications
* ''On Morse-Smale Dynamical Systems'', Topology 19, 1969 (385–405).
* ''Structural Stability Theorems'', with S. Smale, Proceedings of the Institute on Global Analysis, American Math. Society, Vol. XIV, 1970 (223–232).
* ''Cycles and Bifurcations Theory'', with S. Newhouse, Asterisque 31, Société Mathématique de France, 1976 (44–140).
*
The Topology of Holomorphic Flows near a Singularity
', with C. Camacho and N. Kuiper, Publications Math.Institut Hautes Études Scientifiques 48, 1978 (5–38).
* ''Moduli of Stability and Bifurcation Theory'', Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Helsinki, 1978 (835–839).
* ''Stability of Parameterized Families of Gradient Vector Fields'', with F. Takens, Annals of Mathematics 118, 1983 (383–421).
* ''Cycles and Measure of Bifurcation Sets for Two-Dimensional Diffeomorphisms'', with F. Takens, Inventiones Mathematicae 82, 1985 (397–422).
* ''Homoclinic Orbits, Hyperbolic Dynamic and Fractional Dimensions of Cantor Sets'' (Lefschetz Centennial Conference) Contemporary Mathematics - American Mathematical Society, 58, 1987 (203–216).
* ''Hyperbolicity and Creation of Homoclinic Orbits'', with F.Takens, Annals of Mathematics 125, 1987 (337–374).
* ''On the C1 Omega-Stability Conjecture, Publications Math. Institut Hautes Études Scientifiques, 66, 1988 (210–215).
* ''Bifurcations and Global Stability of Two-Parameter Families of Gradient Vector Fields with M. J. Carneiro, Publications Math. Institut Hautes Études Scientifiques 70, 1990 (103–168).
* "Homoclinic Tangencies for Hyperbolic Sets of Large Hausdorff Dimension", with J. C. Yoccoz, ''Acta Mathematica'' 172, 1994, pp. 91–136.
* ''High Dimension Diffeomorphisms Displaying Infinitely Many Sinks'', with M. Viana, Annals of Mathematics 140, 1994 (207–250).
* ''A Global View of Dynamics and a Conjecture on the Denseness of Finitude of Attractors''. ''Astérisque''. France:, v. 261, pp. 339–351, 2000.
* ''Homoclinic tangencies and fractal invariants in arbitrary dimension'', with C. Moreira and M. Viana, C R Ac Sc Paris., 2001.
* ''Nonuniformily hyperbolic horseshoes unleashed by homoclinic bifurcations and zero density of attractors'', with J.-C. Yoccoz, C R Ac Sc Paris., 2001.
;Books published
* ''Geometric Theory of Dynamical Systems'', with W. de Melo. Springer-Verlag, 1982; also published in Portuguese, Russian and Chinese.
* ''Hyperbolicity and Sensitive-Chaotic Dynamics at Homoclinic Bifurcations, Fractal Dimensions and Infinitely Many Attractors'', with F. Takens. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993; Second Edition, 1994.
References
External links
Jacob Palis' homepage
*
Jacob Palis
International Balzan Prize Foundation
Interview (in Portuguese)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Palis, Jacob
1940 births
Living people
21st-century Brazilian mathematicians
People from Uberaba
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
Members of the French Academy of Sciences
Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
Members of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences
Foreign Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Foreign members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Foreign Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy
Dynamical systems theorists
Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada researchers
20th-century Brazilian mathematicians
TWAS laureates
Members of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
Presidents of the International Mathematical Union