Shreeram Shankar Abhyankar (22 July 1930 – 2 November 2012) was an

Indian American Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from India. The United States Census Bureau uses the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Native Americans, who have also historically been referred to ...

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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

known for his contributions to algebraic geometry. He, at the time of his death, held the Marshall

Distinguished Professor Distinguished Professor is an academic title given to some top tenured professors in a university, school, or department. Some distinguished professors may have endowed chairs. In the United States Often specific to one institution, titles such ...

of Mathematics Chair at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and ...

, and was also a professor of computer science and industrial engineering. He is known for Abhyankar's conjecture of finite

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 ...

. His latest research was in the area of

computation Computation is any type of arithmetic or non-arithmetic calculation that follows a well-defined model (e.g., an algorithm). Mechanical or electronic devices (or, historically, people) that perform computations are known as '' computers''. An esp ...

al and

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...

ic algebraic geometry.

Career

Abhyankar was born in a

Chitpavan The Chitpavan Brahmin or Konkanastha Brahmin is a Hindu Maharashtrian Brahmin community inhabiting Konkan, the coastal region of the state of Maharashtra. Initially working as messengers and spies in the late seventeenth century, the communit ...

Brahmin Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests ( purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers ( ...

family in

Ujjain Ujjain (, Hindustani pronunciation: �d͡ːʒɛːn is a city in Ujjain district of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is the fifth-largest city in Madhya Pradesh by population and is the administrative centre of Ujjain district and Ujjain ...

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital city, capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar, and Rewa, India, Rewa being the othe ...

, India. He earned his B.Sc. from

Royal Institute of Science The Institute of Science (formerly known as the Royal Institute of Science (RIS)) is an institution of postgraduate education and research located in Mumbai, India. It is managed by the Government of Maharashtra and is currently clustered from ...

University of Mumbai The University of Mumbai is a collegiate, state-owned, public research university in Mumbai. The University of Mumbai is one of the largest universities in the world. , the university had 711 affiliated colleges. Ratan Tata is the appointed ...

in 1951, his

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. ...

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 high ...

in 1952, and his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1955. His thesis, written under the direction of

Oscar Zariski , birth_date = , birth_place = Kobrin, Russian Empire , death_date = , death_place = Brookline, Massachusetts, United States , nationality = American , field = Mathematics , work_institutions ...

, was titled ''Local uniformization on algebraic surfaces over modular ground fields''. Before going to

Purdue Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

, he was an associate

professor of mathematics Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to ...

and

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

. Abhyankar was appointed the Marshall Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at Purdue in 1967. His research topics include algebraic geometry (particularly

resolution of singularities In algebraic geometry, the problem of resolution of singularities asks whether every algebraic variety ''V'' has a resolution, a non-singular variety ''W'' with a proper birational map ''W''→''V''. For varieties over fields of characteri ...

, a field in which he made significant progress over fields of finite characteristic),

commutative algebra Commutative algebra, first known as ideal theory, is the branch of algebra that studies commutative rings, their ideals, and modules over such rings. Both algebraic geometry and algebraic number theory build on commutative algebra. Promi ...

local algebra In abstract algebra, more specifically ring theory, local rings are certain rings that are comparatively simple, and serve to describe what is called "local behaviour", in the sense of functions defined on varieties or manifolds, or of algebraic n ...

valuation theory In algebra (in particular in algebraic geometry or algebraic number theory), a valuation is a function on a field that provides a measure of size or multiplicity of elements of the field. It generalizes to commutative algebra the notion of size ...

, theory of functions of

several complex variables The theory of functions of several complex variables is the branch of mathematics dealing with complex number, complex-valued functions. The name of the field dealing with the properties of function of several complex variables is called several ...

quantum electrodynamics In particle physics, quantum electrodynamics (QED) is the relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics. In essence, it describes how light and matter interact and is the first theory where full agreement between quantum mechanics and spec ...

circuit theory Circuit may refer to: Science and technology Electrical engineering * Electrical circuit, a complete electrical network with a closed-loop giving a return path for current ** Analog circuit, uses continuous signal levels ** Balanced circ ...

invariant theory Invariant theory is a branch of abstract algebra dealing with actions of groups on algebraic varieties, such as vector spaces, from the point of view of their effect on functions. Classically, the theory dealt with the question of explicit descri ...

combinatorics Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and an end in obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many a ...

, computer-aided design, and

robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist human ...

. He popularized the

Jacobian conjecture In mathematics, the Jacobian conjecture is a famous unsolved problem concerning polynomials in several variables. It states that if a polynomial function from an ''n''-dimensional space to itself has Jacobian determinant which is a non-zero co ...

Death

Abhyankar died of a heart condition on 2 November 2012 at his residence near Purdue University.

Selected publications

* * * *

Honours

Abhyankar has won numerous awards and honours. * Abhyankar received the Herbert Newby McCoy Award from Purdue University in 1973 . * Fellow of the

Indian Academy of Sciences The Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore was founded by Indian Physicist and Nobel Laureate C. V. Raman, and was registered as a society on 24 April 1934. Inaugurated on 31 July 1934, it began with 65 founding fellows. The first general mee ...

* Editorial board member of the ''Indian Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics'' *

Chauvenet Prize The Chauvenet Prize is the highest award for mathematical expository writing. It consists of a prize of $1,000 and a certificate, and is awarded yearly by the Mathematical Association of America in recognition of an outstanding expository article ...

from the Mathematical Association of America (1978) * Honorary Doctorate Degree (Docteur Honoris Causa) by the

University of Angers The University of Angers (french: Université d'Angers; UA) is a public university in western France, with campuses in Angers, Cholet, and Saumur. It forms part of thAngers-Le Mans University Community History The University of Angers was init ...

in France (29 October 1998) *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 ...

(2012)List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
retrieved 2012-11-03.

References

External links