Steven Mark Zucker (12 September 1949 – 13 September 2019) was 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 ...

who introduced the Zucker conjecture, proved in different ways by Eduard Looijenga (1988) and by Leslie Saper and

Mark Stern Mark Stern is an American mathematician whose focus has been on geometric analysis, Yang–Mills theory, Hodge theory, and string theory. One of Stern's foremost accomplishments is his proof (joint with Leslie D. Saper) of the Zucker conjecture ...

(1990). Zucker completed his

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 ...

in 1974 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 ...

under the supervision of

Spencer Bloch Spencer Janney Bloch (born May 22, 1944; New York City) is an American mathematician known for his contributions to algebraic geometry and algebraic ''K''-theory. Bloch is a R. M. Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Departm ...

. His work with

David A. Cox David Archibald Cox (born September 23, 1948 in Washington, D.C.) is a retired American mathematician, working in algebraic geometry. Cox graduated from Rice University with a bachelor's degree in 1970 and his Ph.D. in 1975 at Princeton Universit ...

led to the creation of the Cox–Zucker machine, an algorithm for determining if a given set of sections provides a basis (up to torsion) for the

Mordell–Weil group In arithmetic geometry, the Mordell–Weil group is an abelian group associated to any abelian variety A defined over a number field K, it is an arithmetic invariant of the Abelian variety. It is simply the group of K-points of A, so A(K) is the Mor ...

of an elliptic surface

E \to S

, where

S

is isomorphic to the

projective line In mathematics, a projective line is, roughly speaking, the extension of a usual line by a point called a ''point at infinity''. The statement and the proof of many theorems of geometry are simplified by the resultant elimination of special cases; ...

. He was part of the mathematics faculty at the

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

. In 2012, he became a fellow 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, ...

Bibliography

* * *Saper, Leslie; Stern, Mark ''L₂-cohomology of arithmetic varieties'',

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 ...

(2) 132 (1990), no. 1, 1–69. * * * *

References

External links

* * 1949 births 2019 deaths Algebraic geometers Princeton University alumni Johns Hopkins University faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Mathematicians from Maryland Scientists from Baltimore {{US-mathematician-stub