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
Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...
, 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
In the mathematical area of topology, the generalized Poincaré conjecture is a statement that a manifold which is a homotopy sphere a sphere. More precisely, one fixes a category of manifolds: topological (Top), piecewise linear (PL), or differe ...
. 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 ...
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 Je ...
, 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 a ...
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
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 ...
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
Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...
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 ...
, 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 form ...
.
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 In differential geometry, systolic freedom refers to the fact that closed Riemannian manifolds may have arbitrarily small volume regardless of their systolic invariants.
That is, systolic invariants or products of systolic invariants do not in gener ...
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.
See also
*
4-manifold
In mathematics, a 4-manifold is a 4-dimensional topological manifold. A smooth 4-manifold is a 4-manifold with a smooth structure. In dimension four, in marked contrast with lower dimensions, topological and smooth manifolds are quite different. T ...
*
5-manifold
In mathematics, a 5-manifold is a 5-dimensional topological manifold, possibly with a piecewise linear or smooth structure.
Non- simply connected 5-manifolds are impossible to classify, as this is harder than solving the word problem for groups ...
*
Casson handle
*
Exotic R4
In mathematics, an exotic \R^4 is a differentiable manifold that is homeomorphic (i.e. shape preserving) but not diffeomorphic (i.e. non smooth) to the Euclidean space \R^4. The first examples were found in 1982 by Michael Freedman and others ...
*
Fake 4-ball
In mathematics, a fake 4-ball is a compact contractible topological 4-manifold. Michael Freedman proved that every three-dimensional homology sphere bounds a fake 4-ball. His construction involves the use of Casson handle In 4-dimensional topolog ...
*
Intersection form of a 4-manifold
*
Möbius energy
In mathematics, the Möbius energy of a knot (mathematics), knot is a particular knot energy, i.e., a Functional (mathematics), functional on the space of knots. It was discovered by Jun O'Hara, who demonstrated that the energy blows up as the kno ...
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