Vladimir Alexandrovich Voevodsky (, russian: Влади́мир Алекса́ндрович Воево́дский; 4 June 1966 – 30 September 2017) was a

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

America 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 ...

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 ...

. His work in developing a

homotopy theory In mathematics, homotopy theory is a systematic study of situations in which maps can come with homotopies between them. It originated as a topic in algebraic topology but nowadays is studied as an independent discipline. Besides algebraic topolog ...

for

algebraic varieties Algebraic varieties are the central objects of study in algebraic geometry, a sub-field of mathematics. Classically, an algebraic variety is defined as the set of solutions of a system of polynomial equations over the real or complex numbers. Mo ...

and formulating

motivic cohomology Motivic cohomology is an invariant of algebraic varieties and of more general schemes. It is a type of cohomology related to motives and includes the Chow ring of algebraic cycles as a special case. Some of the deepest problems in algebraic geometr ...

led to the award of 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 ...

in 2002. He is also known for the proof of the

Milnor conjecture In mathematics, the Milnor conjecture was a proposal by of a description of the Milnor K-theory (mod 2) of a general field ''F'' with characteristic different from 2, by means of the Galois (or equivalently étale) cohomology of ''F'' wi ...

and motivic Bloch–Kato conjectures and for the

univalent foundations Univalent foundations are an approach to the foundations of mathematics in which mathematical structures are built out of objects called ''types''. Types in univalent foundations do not correspond exactly to anything in set-theoretic foundations, bu ...

of mathematics and

homotopy type theory In mathematical logic and computer science, homotopy type theory (HoTT ) refers to various lines of development of intuitionistic type theory, based on the interpretation of types as objects to which the intuition of (abstract) homotopy theory ...

Early life and education

Vladimir Voevodsky's father, Aleksander Voevodsky, was head of the Laboratory of High Energy Leptons in the Institute for Nuclear Research at the Russian Academy of Sciences. His mother Tatyana was a chemist. Voevodsky attended

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

for a while, but was forced to leave without a diploma for refusing to attend classes and failing academically. He received 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 mathematics from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1992 after being recommended without even applying, following several independent publications, he was advised there by

David Kazhdan David Kazhdan ( he, דוד קשדן), born Dmitry Aleksandrovich Kazhdan (russian: Дми́трий Александро́вич Кажда́н), is a Soviet and Israeli mathematician known for work in representation theory. Kazhdan is a 1990 Ma ...

. While he was a first year undergraduate, he was given a copy of

Esquisse d'un Programme "Esquisse d'un Programme" (Sketch of a Programme) is a famous proposal for long-term mathematical research made by the German-born, French mathematician Alexander Grothendieck in 1984. He pursued the sequence of logically linked ideas in his impor ...

(submitted a few months earlier by Alexander Grothendieck to

CNRS 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 ...

) by his advisor George Shabat. He learned the

French language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Nor ...

"with the sole purpose of being able to read this text" and started his research on some of the themes mentioned there.

Work

Voevodsky's work was in the intersection of

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics, classically studying zeros of multivariate polynomials. Modern algebraic geometry is based on the use of abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, for solving geometrical ...

with

algebraic topology Algebraic topology is a branch of mathematics that uses tools from abstract algebra to study topological spaces. The basic goal is to find algebraic invariant (mathematics), invariants that classification theorem, classify topological spaces up t ...

. Along with

Fabien Morel Fabien Morel (born 22 January 1965, in Reims) is a French algebraic geometer and key developer of A¹ homotopy theory with Vladimir Voevodsky. Among his accomplishments is the proof of the Friedlander conjecture, and the proof of the complex cas ...

, Voevodsky introduced a

for schemes. He also formulated what is now believed to be the correct form of

, and used this new tool to prove

Milnor's conjecture In mathematics, the Milnor conjecture was a proposal by of a description of the Milnor K-theory (mod 2) of a general field ''F'' with characteristic different from 2, by means of the Galois (or equivalently étale) cohomology of ''F'' wi ...

relating the

Milnor John Willard Milnor (born February 20, 1931) is an American mathematician known for his work in differential topology, algebraic K-theory and low-dimensional holomorphic dynamical systems. Milnor is a distinguished professor at Stony Brook Univ ...

K-theory In mathematics, K-theory is, roughly speaking, the study of a ring generated by vector bundles over a topological space or scheme. In algebraic topology, it is a cohomology theory known as topological K-theory. In algebra and algebraic geometry, ...

of a

field Field may refer to: Expanses of open ground * Field (agriculture), an area of land used for agricultural purposes * Airfield, an aerodrome that lacks the infrastructure of an airport * Battlefield * Lawn, an area of mowed grass * Meadow, a grass ...

to its

étale cohomology In mathematics, the étale cohomology groups of an algebraic variety or scheme are algebraic analogues of the usual cohomology groups with finite coefficients of a topological space, introduced by Grothendieck in order to prove the Weil conjecture ...

. For the above, he received the

at the 24th

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 ...

held in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. In 1998 he gave a plenary lecture (''A¹-Homotopy Theory'') at the International Congress of Mathematicians 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 coauthored (with

Andrei Suslin Andrei Suslin (russian: Андре́й Алекса́ндрович Су́слин, sometimes transliterated Souslin) was a Russian mathematician who contributed to algebraic K-theory and its connections with algebraic geometry. He was a Trustee ...

and

Eric M. Friedlander Eric Mark Friedlander (born January 7, 1944 in Santurce, Puerto Rico) is an American mathematician who is working in algebraic topology, algebraic geometry, algebraic K-theory and representation theory. Friedlander graduated from Swarthmore ...

) ''Cycles, Transfers and Motivic Homology Theories'', which develops the theory of motivic cohomology in some detail. From 2002, Voevodsky was a professor 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 scholar ...

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 ...

. In January 2009, at an anniversary conference in honor of Alexander Grothendieck, held at the

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, just ...

, Voevodsky announced a proof of the full Bloch–Kato conjectures. In 2009, he constructed the univalent model of

Martin-Löf type theory Intuitionistic type theory (also known as constructive type theory, or Martin-Löf type theory) is a type theory and an alternative Foundations of mathematics, foundation of mathematics. Intuitionistic type theory was created by Per Martin-Löf, a ...

simplicial set In mathematics, a simplicial set is an object composed of ''simplices'' in a specific way. Simplicial sets are higher-dimensional generalizations of directed graphs, partially ordered sets and categories. Formally, a simplicial set may be defined a ...

s. This led to important advances in type theory and in the development of new

of mathematics that Voevodsky worked on in his final years. He worked on a

Coq Coq is an interactive theorem prover first released in 1989. It allows for expressing mathematical assertions, mechanically checks proofs of these assertions, helps find formal proofs, and extracts a certified program from the constructive proof ...

library ''UniMath'' using univalent ideas. In April 2016, the

University of Gothenburg The University of Gothenburg ( sv, Göteborgs universitet) is a university in Sweden's second largest city, Gothenburg. Founded in 1891, the university is the third-oldest of the current Swedish universities and with 37,000 students and 6000 st ...

awarded an honorary doctorate to Voevodsky.

Death and legacy

Voevodsky died on 30 September 2017 at his home in Princeton, from an

aneurysm An aneurysm is an outward bulging, likened to a bubble or balloon, caused by a localized, abnormal, weak spot on a blood vessel wall. Aneurysms may be a result of a hereditary condition or an acquired disease. Aneurysms can also be a nidus (s ...

. He is survived by daughters Diana Yasmine Voevodsky and Natalia Dalia Shalaby.

Selected works

* *Review: ''Lecture Notes on Motivic Cohomology'', European Mathematical Society
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Notes

References

External links

Vladimir Voevodsky on GitHub
Contains the slides of many of his recent lectures.

Интервью с Владимиром Воеводским и Лораном Лаффоргом * Julie Rehmeyer

New York Times, 6 October 2017 * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Voevodsky, Vladimir 1966 births 2017 deaths 20th-century Russian mathematicians 21st-century Russian mathematicians Fields Medalists Algebraic geometers Topologists Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Institute for Advanced Study faculty Soviet mathematicians Sloan Research Fellows Harvard Fellows Russian expatriates in the United States