Stevo Todorčević ( sr-Cyrl, Стево Тодорчевић; born February 9, 1955), is a Yugoslavian mathematician specializing in

mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of formal ...

and

set theory Set theory is the branch of mathematical logic that studies sets, which can be informally described as collections of objects. Although objects of any kind can be collected into a set, set theory, as a branch of mathematics, is mostly concer ...

. He holds a

Canada Research Chair Canada Research Chair (CRC) is a title given to certain Canadian university research professors by the Canada Research Chairs Program. Program goals The Canada Research Chair program was established in 2000 as a part of the Government of Canada ...

in mathematics at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institu ...

, and a director of research position at the

Centre national de la recherche scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 ...

in Paris.

Early life and education

Todorčević was born in

Ubovića Brdo Ubovića Brdo ( sr-cyrl, Убовића Брдо) is a village in the Mrkonjić Grad municipality, Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The village census shows that it had 593 inhabitants in 1953, reduced to only 81 in 2013 as a result of i ...

. As a child he moved to Banatsko Novo Selo, and went to school in

Pančevo Pančevo (Serbian Cyrillic: Панчево, ; german: Pantschowa; hu, Pancsova; ro, Panciova; sk, Pánčevo) is a city and the administrative center of the South Banat District in the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. It is located on ...

. At

Belgrade University The University of Belgrade ( sr, / ) is a public university in Serbia. It is the oldest and largest modern university in Serbia. Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac- ...

, he studied

pure mathematics Pure mathematics is the study of mathematical concepts independently of any application outside mathematics. These concepts may originate in real-world concerns, and the results obtained may later turn out to be useful for practical applications ...

, attending lectures by

Đuro Kurepa Đuro Kurepa ( Serbian Cyrillic: Ђуро Курепа, ; 16 August 1907 – 2 November 1993) was a Yugoslav mathematician. Throughout his life, Kurepa published over 700 articles, books, papers, and reviews and over 1,000 scientific reviews. He ...

. He began graduate studies in 1978, and wrote his doctoral thesis in 1979 with Kurepa as his advisor.

Research

Todorčević's work involves mathematical logic, set theory, and their applications to pure mathematics. In Todorčević's 1978 master’s thesis, he constructed a model of MA + ¬wKH in a way to allow him to make the continuum any regular cardinal, and so derived a variety of topological consequences. Here MA is an abbreviation for

Martin's axiom In the mathematical field of set theory, Martin's axiom, introduced by Donald A. Martin and Robert M. Solovay, is a statement that is independent of the usual axioms of ZFC set theory. It is implied by the continuum hypothesis, but it is consi ...

and wKH stands for the weak

Kurepa Hypothesis In set theory, a Kurepa tree is a tree (''T'', <) of height ω₁, each of whose levels is at most countable, and ha ...

. In 1980, Todorčević and Abraham proved the existence of rigid Aronszajn trees and the consistency of MA + the negation of the

continuum hypothesis In mathematics, the continuum hypothesis (abbreviated CH) is a hypothesis about the possible sizes of infinite sets. It states that or equivalently, that In Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice (ZFC), this is equivalent ...

+ there exists a first countable S-space.

Awards and honours

Todorčević is the winner of *the first prize of the Balkan Mathematical Society for 1980 and 1982, *the 2012

CRM-Fields-PIMS prize The CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize is the premier Canadian research prize in the mathematical sciences. It is awarded in recognition of exceptional research achievement in the mathematical sciences and is given annually by three Canadian mathematics instit ...

in mathematical sciences,Stevo Todorcevic (Toronto) receives 2012 CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize
Fields Institute, retrieved 2012-03-07. and *the Shoenfield prize of the

Association for Symbolic Logic The Association for Symbolic Logic (ASL) is an international organization of specialists in mathematical logic and philosophical logic. The ASL was founded in 1936, and its first president was Alonzo Church. The current president of the ASL is ...

for "outstanding expository writing in the field of logic" in 2013, for his book ''Introduction to Ramsey Spaces''. He was selected by the Association for Symbolic Logic as their 2016

Gödel Lecture The Gödel Lecture is an honor in mathematical logic given by the Association for Symbolic Logic, associated with an annual lecture at the association's general meeting. The award is named after Kurt Gödel and has been given annually since 1990. ...

r. He became a corresponding member of the

Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Serbica, sr-Cyr, Српска академија наука и уметности, САНУ, Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, SANU) is a national academy and the ...

as of 1991 and a full member of the Academy in 2009. In 2016 Todorčević became a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Todorčević has been described as "the greatest Serbian mathematician" since the time of Mihailo Petrović Alas.

Books

Todorčević is the author of books in mathematics that include: *''Partition problems in topology'' (1989) *''Some applications of the method of forcing'' (with I. Farah, 1995) *''Topics in topology'' (1997) *''Ramsey methods in analysis'' (with S. A. Argyros, 2005) *''Walks on ordinals and their characteristics'' (2007) *''Introduction to Ramsey spaces'' (2010) *''Notes on forcing axioms'' (2014)

References

Sources

*.
RSC Fellowship Citation and Detailed Appraisal: Stevo Todorcevic

External links

CRM Fields PIMS Prize Lecture: Prof. Stevo Todorcevic (photo album)

CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize Lecture: Stevo Todorcevic (University of Toronto)

Stevo Todorcevic
at

Stevo Todorcevic
at Institut de mathématiques de Jussieu – Paris Rive Gauche
Todorčević najcenjeniji (Todorčević most respected)

''Dispute over Infinity Divides Mathematicians''
by Natalie Wolchover,

Quanta Magazine ''Quanta Magazine'' is an editorially independent online publication of the Simons Foundation covering developments in physics, mathematics, biology and computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and i ...

, November 26, 2013; contains some comments on choices of axioms for set theory
Stevo Todorcevic
at

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 ...

Prof. Todorčević Interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Todorcevic, Stevo Living people 20th-century Serbian mathematicians 21st-century Canadian mathematicians Combinatorialists Set theorists Topologists Mathematical analysts Canada Research Chairs Members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada University of Toronto faculty Academic staff of the University of Paris University of Belgrade Faculty of Mathematics alumni 21st-century mathematicians 1955 births Tarski lecturers Canadian people of Serbian descent Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina Gödel Lecturers Yugoslav mathematicians