Iacopo Barsotti, or Jacopo Barsotti (Turin, 28 April 1921 – Padua, 27 October 1987) was an Italian mathematician who introduced

Barsotti–Tate group In algebraic geometry, Barsotti–Tate groups or ''p''-divisible groups are similar to the points of order a power of ''p'' on an abelian variety in characteristic ''p''. They were introduced by under the name equidimensional hyperdomain and by ...

s. In 1942 he graduated from the

Scuola Normale Superiore The Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (commonly known in Italy as "la Normale") is a public university in Pisa and Florence, Tuscany, Italy, currently attended by about 600 undergraduate and postgraduate (PhD) students. It was founded in 1810 wi ...

Pisa Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the cit ...

, and became assistant professor Francesco Severi at the University of Rome in 1946. In 1948 he emigrated to the US, first as a guest professor 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 ...

, then as a full professor at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

and at

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 ...

. In 1961 he was recalled to Pisa as a teacher first of

Geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

, then of Algebra. From 1968 to his death he taught Geometry at the University of Padua. Iacopo was a visiting scholar at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

in 1982.Institute for Advanced Study: A Community of Scholars
His research work mainly concerned

algebra Algebra () is one of the broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathematics. Elementary a ...

and

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics, classically studying zeros of multivariate polynomials. Modern algebraic geometry is based on the use of abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, for solving geometrical ...

. In particular, in the field of group theory, he dealt with abelian varieties, theorizing what are now called

s and which are at the basis of

crystalline cohomology In mathematics, crystalline cohomology is a Weil cohomology theory for schemes ''X'' over a base field ''k''. Its values ''H'n''(''X''/''W'') are modules over the ring ''W'' of Witt vectors over ''k''. It was introduced by and developed by . ...

. He also dealt with

theta functions In mathematics, theta functions are special functions of several complex variables. They show up in many topics, including Abelian varieties, moduli spaces, quadratic forms, and solitons. As Grassmann algebras, they appear in quantum field theo ...

, generalizing them with the introduction of the "theta-like class of functions."

References

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External links

Iacopo Barsotti
* Algebraic geometers Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars 1987 deaths 1921 births 20th-century Italian mathematicians University of Pittsburgh faculty Brown University faculty Italian expatriates in the United States {{Italy-mathematician-stub