Jean, Baron Bourgain (; – ) was a Belgian mathematician. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1994 in recognition of his work on several core topics of

mathematical analysis Analysis is the branch of mathematics dealing with continuous functions, limit (mathematics), limits, and related theories, such as Derivative, differentiation, Integral, integration, measure (mathematics), measure, infinite sequences, series (m ...

such as the geometry of Banach spaces, harmonic analysis, ergodic theory and

nonlinear partial differential equation In mathematics and physics, a nonlinear partial differential equation is a partial differential equation with nonlinear terms. They describe many different physical systems, ranging from gravitation to fluid dynamics, and have been used in mathe ...

s from

mathematical physics Mathematical physics refers to the development of mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The '' Journal of Mathematical Physics'' defines the field as "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the developme ...

Biography

Bourgain received his PhD from the

Vrije Universiteit Brussel The Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) () is a Dutch and English-speaking research university located in Brussels, Belgium.The Vrije Universiteit Brussel is one of the five universities officially recognised by the Flemish government. listof all ...

in 1977. He was a faculty member at the

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the Flagship#Colleges and universities in ...

and, from 1985 until 1995, professor at

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 ...

Bures-sur-Yvette Bures-sur-Yvette (, literally ''Bures on Yvette'') is a commune in the Essonne department in Île-de-France in northern France. Geography Bures-sur-Yvette is located in the Vallée de Chevreuse on the river Yvette, along which the RER line&nb ...

in France, 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 schola ...

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

from 1994 until 2018. He was an editor for the ''

Annals of Mathematics The ''Annals of Mathematics'' is a mathematical journal published every two months by Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study. History The journal was established as ''The Analyst'' in 1874 and with Joel E. Hendricks as the ...

''. From 2012 to 2014, he was a visiting scholar at

UC 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 uni ...

. His research work included several areas of

such as the

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 ...

of Banach spaces, harmonic analysis, analytic number theory, combinatorics, ergodic theory,

partial differential equations In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which imposes relations between the various partial derivatives of a multivariable function. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" to be solved for, similarly to ...

and

spectral theory In mathematics, spectral theory is an inclusive term for theories extending the eigenvector and eigenvalue theory of a single square matrix to a much broader theory of the structure of operators in a variety of mathematical spaces. It is a result ...

, and later also

group theory In abstract algebra, group theory studies the algebraic structures known as group (mathematics), groups. The concept of a group is central to abstract algebra: other well-known algebraic structures, such as ring (mathematics), rings, field ...

. In 2000, Bourgain connected the Kakeya problem to

arithmetic combinatorics In mathematics, arithmetic combinatorics is a field in the intersection of number theory, combinatorics, ergodic theory and harmonic analysis. Scope Arithmetic combinatorics is about combinatorial estimates associated with arithmetic operations (ad ...

. As a researcher, he was the author or coauthor of more than 500 articles. Bourgain was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in late 2014. He died of it on 22 December 2018 at a hospital in Bonheiden, Belgium.

Awards and recognition

Bourgain received several awards during his career, the most notable being the Fields Medal in 1994. In 2009 Bourgain was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 2010, he received the Shaw Prize in Mathematics. In 2012, he and Terence Tao received the

Crafoord Prize The Crafoord Prize is an annual science prize established in 1980 by Holger Crafoord, a Swedish industrialist, and his wife Anna-Greta Crafoord. The Prize is awarded in partnership between the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Crafoord Foun ...

in Mathematics from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 2015, he was made a baron by king Philippe of Belgium. In 2016, he received the 2017

Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics The Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics is an annual award of the Breakthrough Prize series announced in 2013. It is funded by Yuri Milner and Mark Zuckerberg and others. The annual award comes with a cash gift of $3 million. The Breakthrough Prize ...

. In 2017, he received the 2018 Leroy P. Steele Prizes.

Selected publications

Articles

* (See Banach space and martingale.) * * * * * * * * * * (See

Sobolev space In mathematics, a Sobolev space is a vector space of functions equipped with a norm that is a combination of ''Lp''-norms of the function together with its derivatives up to a given order. The derivatives are understood in a suitable weak sense ...

.) * * * * (See

Lindelöf hypothesis In mathematics, the Lindelöf hypothesis is a conjecture by Finnish mathematician Ernst Leonard Lindelöf (see ) about the rate of growth of the Riemann zeta function on the critical line. This hypothesis is implied by the Riemann hypothesis. It s ...

Books

* * * (Bourgain's research on nonlinear dispersive equations was, according to Carlos Kenig, "deep and influential".) * *

References

External links

MathSciNet: "Items authored by Bourgain, Jean."
* * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bourgain, Jean 1954 births 2018 deaths Fields Medalists Members of the French Academy of Sciences Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Functional analysts Mathematical analysts Institute for Advanced Study faculty University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty 20th-century Belgian mathematicians Belgian mathematicians Vrije Universiteit Brussel alumni