Wolfgang Lück (born 19 February 1957 in

Herford Herford (; nds, Hiarwede) is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, located in the lowlands between the hill chains of the Wiehen Hills and the Teutoburg Forest. It is the capital of the district of Herford. Geography Geographic locat ...

) 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 invariants that classify topological spaces up to homeomorphism, though usually most classify ...

Life and work

After receiving his '' Abitur'' from the Ravensberger Gymnasium in

in 1975, he studied at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

where he obtained his Diplom in 1981 and his

doctoral degree A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

under

Tammo tom Dieck Tammo tom Dieck (29 May 1938, São Paulo) is a German mathematician, specializing in algebraic topology. Tammo tom Dieck studied mathematics from 1957 at the University of Göttingen and at Saarland University, where he received his Promotion (Ge ...

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 1990–91, he was associate professor at the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state ...

in Lexington. From 1991 until 1996, he was professor at the

University of Mainz The Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (german: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) is a public research university in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate, Germany, named after the printer Johannes Gutenberg since 1946. With approximately 32,000 stud ...

, and from 1996 until 2010 he taught at the

University of Münster The University of Münster (german: Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, WWU) is a public research university located in the city of Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. With more than 43,000 students and over 120 fields of stud ...

. Since 2010 he has been a professor at the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine ...

. In 2003, he was awarded the

Max Planck Research Award Max or MAX may refer to: Animals * Max (dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog * Max (English Springer Spaniel), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of OBE) * Max (gorilla) ...

and in 2008 the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize. Lück has made significant contributions in topology; he and his coauthors resolved many cases of the Farrell-Jones conjecture and the

Borel conjecture In mathematics, specifically geometric topology, the Borel conjecture (named for Armand Borel) asserts that an aspherical closed manifold is determined by its fundamental group, up to homeomorphism. It is a rigidity conjecture, asserting that a ...

. He has also contributed to the development of the theory of L²-invariants (such as L²-Betti numbers and L²-cohomology) of manifolds, which were originally introduced by

Michael Atiyah Sir Michael Francis Atiyah (; 22 April 1929 – 11 January 2019) was a British-Lebanese mathematician specialising in geometry. His contributions include the Atiyah–Singer index theorem and co-founding topological K-theory. He was awarded th ...

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, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ...

. In 2009 and 2010 Lück was president of the

German Mathematical Society The German Mathematical Society (german: Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung, DMV) is the main professional society of German mathematicians and represents German mathematics within the European Mathematical Society (EMS) and the International Math ...

, 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 The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

. 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, ...

Selected publications

* * * * * L² Invarianten von Mannigfaltigkeiten und Gruppen, Jahresbericht DMV, Bd.99, 1997, Heft 3 * * Editor together with F. Thomas Farrell and

Lothar Göttsche Lothar Göttsche (born January 21, 1961 in Sonderburg, Denmark) is a German mathematician, known for his work in algebraic geometry. He is a research scientist at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy. He is also ed ...

: 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 Topologists 21st-century German mathematicians Presidents of the German Mathematical Society