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Atiyah has also been professor of mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Atiyah rejuvenated British mathematics during his years at Oxford and Cambridge. He was also the driving force behind the creation of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge and became its first director. Atiyah is now retired and an honorary professor at the University of Edinburgh and Chancellor of the University of Leicester.
He was one of the founders, with Friedrich Hirzebruch, of topological K-theory, a branch of algebraic topology. He has collaborated with many other mathematicians, for example with Raoul BottRaoul Bott (born September 24 1923) is a mathematician known for numerous basic contributions to geometry in its broad sense. He was born in Budapest, but has spent his working life in the USA. He was Professor at Harvard University 1959-1999, and receive and Isadore SingerIsadore Singer (born 1924) is an Institute Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is noted for work with Michael Atiyah on the Atiyah-Singer index theorem. He was born in Detroit, and received his under on the developments leading to the Atiyah-Singer index theoremIn the mathematics of manifolds and differential operators, the Atiyah-Singer index theorem is an important unifying result that connects topology and analysis. It deals with elliptic differential operators (such as the Laplacian) on compact manifolds.. This led to work in representation theoryIn mathematics Representation theory is the name given to the study of standard representations of abstract mathematical structures. The Representation theory of groups is concerned with representing groups as linear transformations of vector spaces., and on the heat equationThe heat equation or diffusion equation is an important partial differential equation which describes the variation of temperature in a given region over time. In the special case of a heat propagation in an isotropic and homogeneous medium, this equation on manifoldIn mathematics, a manifold ''M is a type of space, characterised in one of two equivalent ways: near every point of the space, we have a coordinate system; or near every point, the environment is like that in Euclidean space of a given dimension. Therefors. He later turned to an interest in gauge field theories, paving the way for the work of others such as WittenEdward Witten (born August 26, 1951) is a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, near Princeton University. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, son of a physicist specializing in gravitation and general relativity. Edward Witten is a mathematical.
In 1966, when he was 37 years old, he was awarded the Fields Medal, and in 2004 he won the Abel Prize together with Singer.
He has been president of the Royal Society, and master of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. He has received the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1968 and its Copley Medal in 1988.
Atiyah has served as president of London Mathematical Society ( 1974 - 1976). He has also played an important role in the shaping of today’s European Mathematical Society (EMS).
He is the president of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. Atiyah was responsible for the founding of the Inter-Academy Panel that brought together many of the worlds academies of science. The Inter-Academy Panel has now been permanently established and will play a major role in the integration of scientific policy throughout the world. Atiyah also instigated the formation of the Association of European Academies (ALLEA).
Among the prizes he has received are the Feltrinelli Prize from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei ( 1981) and the King Faisal International Prize for Science ( 1987). Michael Francis Atiyah was knighted in 1983 and made a member of the Order of Merit in 1992.