Michael Hartley Freedman (born April 21, 1951) is an American

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 ...

, at Microsoft Station Q, a research group at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

. In 1986, he was awarded a

Fields Medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award ho ...

for his work on the 4-dimensional generalized Poincaré conjecture. Freedman and

Robion Kirby Robion Cromwell Kirby (born February 25, 1938) is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley who specializes in low-dimensional topology. Together with Laurent C. Siebenmann he invented the Kirby–Siebenmann invariant f ...

showed that an exotic ℝ⁴ manifold exists.

Life and career

Freedman was born in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. His father,

Benedict Freedman Benedict Freedman (December 19, 1919 – February 24, 2012) was an American novelist and mathematician, the co-author of '' Mrs. Mike'' and a professor of mathematics at Occidental College in Los Angeles.. Life Upbringing Freedman was born to a ...

, was an American Jewish aeronautical engineer, musician, writer, and mathematician. His mother, Nancy Mars Freedman, performed as an actress and also trained as an artist. His parents cowrote a series of novels together. . He entered 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 ...

, but dropped out after two semesters. In the same year he wrote a letter to

Ralph Fox Ralph Hartzler Fox (March 24, 1913 – December 23, 1973) was an American mathematician. As a professor at Princeton University, he taught and advised many of the contributors to the ''Golden Age of differential topology'', and he played ...

, a Princeton professor at the time, and was admitted to graduate school so in 1968 he continued his studies 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 ...

where he received

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

degree in 1973 for his doctoral dissertation titled ''Codimension-Two Surgery'', written under the supervision of William Browder. After graduating, Freedman returned to

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

, where he was a lecturer in the department of mathematics until 1975. He left Berkeley to become a member of 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 ...

(IAS) in Princeton. In 1976 he was appointed assistant professor in the department of mathematics at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

. He spent the year 1980/81 at IAS, returning to UCSD, where in 1982 he was promoted to professor. He was appointed the Charles Lee Powell chair of mathematics at UCSD in 1985. Freedman has received numerous awards and honors including Sloan and

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

s, a

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to ...

, and the

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social scienc ...

. He is an elected 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

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

and of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

. In addition to winning a

at the

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the Nevanlinna Prize (to be rename ...

(ICM) in 1986 in Berkeley, he was an Invited Speaker at the ICM in 1983 in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

and at the ICM in 1998 in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. He currently works at Microsoft Station Q at the

, where his team is involved in the development of the

topological quantum computer A topological quantum computer is a theoretical quantum computer proposed by Russian-American physicist Alexei Kitaev in 1997. It employs quasiparticles in two-dimensional systems, called anyons, whose world lines pass around one another to for ...

Publications

* * Michael H. Freedman and Frank Quinn, ''Topology of 4-manifolds'', Princeton Mathematical Series, vol 39, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1990. * * Freedman, Michael H.: Z2-systolic-freedom. Proceedings of the Kirbyfest (Berkeley, California, 1998), 113–123, Geom. Topol. Monogr., 2, Geom. Topol. Publ., Coventry, 1999. * Freedman, Michael H.; Meyer, David A.; Luo, Feng: Z2- systolic freedom and

quantum code Quantum error correction (QEC) is used in quantum computing to protect quantum information from errors due to decoherence and other quantum noise. Quantum error correction is theorised as essential to achieve fault tolerant quantum computing that ...

s. Mathematics of quantum computation, 287–320, Comput. Math. Ser., Chapman & Hall/CRC, Boca Raton, Florida, 2002.

References

External links

Michael H. Freedman, Microsoft Technical Fellow and Director of Station Q
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Freedman, Michael Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American people of Romanian-Jewish descent Fields Medalists National Medal of Science laureates MacArthur Fellows Microsoft technical fellows University of California, Santa Barbara faculty Princeton University alumni Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars 1951 births Living people People from Los Angeles Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Sloan Research Fellows Mathematicians from California University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty

Life and career

Publications

See also

References

External links