Wolfgang Lück (born 19 February 1957 in Herford) is a German mathematician who is an internationally recognized expert in

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 ...

Life and work

After receiving his '' Abitur'' from the Ravensberger Gymnasium in Herford in 1975, he studied at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

where he obtained his Diplom in 1981 and his doctoral degree under Tammo tom Dieck in 1984. His thesis was entitled ''Eine allgemeine Beschreibung für Faserungen auf projektiven Klassengruppen und Whiteheadgruppen''. From 1982 on he was research assistant and from 1985 on he was assistant in Göttingen. In 1989 Lück received his Habilitation. From 1990 to 1991, he was associate professor at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. From 1991 until 1996, he was professor at the University of Mainz, and from 1996 until 2010 he taught at the University of Münster. Since 2010 he has been a professor at the University of Bonn. In 2003, he was awarded the Max Planck Research Award, in 2008 the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, and in 2025 the von Staudt Prize. Lück has made significant contributions in topology; he and his coauthors resolved many cases of the Farrell-Jones conjecture and the Borel conjecture. He has also contributed to the development of the theory of L²-invariants (such as L²-Betti numbers and L²-cohomology) of

manifold In mathematics, a manifold is a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space near each point. More precisely, an n-dimensional manifold, or ''n-manifold'' for short, is a topological space with the property that each point has a N ...

s, which were originally introduced by Michael Atiyah and are defined by means of operator algebras. These invariants have applications in

group theory In abstract algebra, group theory studies the algebraic structures known as group (mathematics), groups. The concept of a group is central to abstract algebra: other well-known algebraic structures, such as ring (mathematics), rings, field ( ...

and

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

. In 2009 and 2010 Lück was president of the German Mathematical Society, whose vice president he had been since 2006. From 2011 until 2017, he was Director of the Hausdorff Research Institute for Mathematics (HIM) in

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

. 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, ...

. From October 2019 to September 2022, he was spokesperson for the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics (HCM) in Bonn. His doctoral students include Thomas Schick.

Selected publications

* * * * * L² Invarianten von Mannigfaltigkeiten und Gruppen, Jahresbericht DMV, Bd.99, 1997, Heft 3 * * Editor together with F. Thomas Farrell and Lothar Göttsche: Topology of high-dimensional manifolds, ICTP Lecture Notes, 2002 *

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Luck, Wolfgang 1957 births Living people 20th-century German mathematicians Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize winners Academic staff of the University of Münster Fellows of the American Mathematical Society People from Herford University of Kentucky faculty Academic staff of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz Academic staff of the University of Bonn University of Göttingen alumni Academic staff of the University of Göttingen German topologists 21st-century German mathematicians Presidents of the German Mathematical Society