Yves Colin de Verdière is a French

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 ...

Life

He studied at the

École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education Secondary education or post-primary education covers two phases on the International Standard Classification of Education sca ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

in the late 1960s, obtained 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 1973, and then spent the bulk of his working life as faculty at

Joseph Fourier University Joseph Fourier University (UJF, french: Université Joseph Fourier, also known as Grenoble I) was a French university situated in the city of Grenoble and focused on the fields of sciences, technologies and health. It is now part of the Universi ...

Grenoble lat, Gratianopolis , commune status = Prefecture and commune , image = Panorama grenoble.png , image size = , caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...

. He retired in December 2005.

Work

Colin de Verdière is known for work in

spectral theory In mathematics, spectral theory is an inclusive term for theories extending the eigenvector and eigenvalue theory of a single square matrix to a much broader theory of the structure of operators in a variety of mathematical spaces. It is a result ...

, in particular on the semiclassical limit of

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, q ...

(including

quantum chaos Quantum chaos is a branch of physics which studies how chaotic classical dynamical systems can be described in terms of quantum theory. The primary question that quantum chaos seeks to answer is: "What is the relationship between quantum mech ...

); in

graph theory In mathematics, graph theory is the study of '' graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of '' vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'') which are conn ...

where he introduced a new

graph invariant Graph may refer to: Mathematics * Graph (discrete mathematics), a structure made of vertices and edges ** Graph theory, the study of such graphs and their properties *Graph (topology), a topological space resembling a graph in the sense of disc ...

, the

Colin de Verdière graph invariant Colin de Verdière's invariant is a graph parameter \mu(G) for any graph ''G,'' introduced by Yves Colin de Verdière in 1990. It was motivated by the study of the maximum multiplicity of the second eigenvalue of certain Schrödinger operators. De ...

; and on a variety of other subjects within

Riemannian geometry Riemannian geometry is the branch of differential geometry that studies Riemannian manifolds, smooth manifolds with a ''Riemannian metric'', i.e. with an inner product on the tangent space at each point that varies smoothly from point to po ...

and

number theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said, "Math ...

Honors and awards

His contributions have been recognized by several awards: senior member of the

Institut Universitaire de France The Institut Universitaire de France (IUF, Academic Institute of France), is a service of the French Ministry of Higher Education that distinguishes each year a small number of university professors for their research excellence, as evidenced by t ...

from 1991 to 2001;

Prize Ampère A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people (such as sporting teams and organizations) to recognize and reward their actions and achievements.

of the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at th ...

in 1999; Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, ...

in 2004; Émile Picard Medal of the

in 2018. He was an invited speaker at the

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

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

in 1986.

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Colin de Verdiere, Yves Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century French mathematicians 21st-century French mathematicians École Normale Supérieure alumni Academic staff of Grenoble Alpes University Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences