Monthly Archives: July 2013

Simon Donaldson obtained his B.A. in mathematics from the University of Cambridge in 1980 and Ph.D. from Oxford University in 1983. During his doctoral studies he proved results on 4-dimensional manifolds which stunned the mathematical world. One consequence of this was the existence of exotic differentiable structures on Euclidean 4-space. After completing his Ph.D., he was appointed as a Junior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, then he spent the following year at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University as a visiting member. When he was merely 28 years old, he became the Wallis Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University. He held that position until 1997 after which he worked for a year as Hoagland professor at Stanford University in the U.S.A. before moving to Imperial College, London in 1999, where he is currently the Royal Society Research Professor of Pure Mathematics and President of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences at the Imperial College in London.

Professor Donaldson’s distinguished contributions to mathematics fall into three main categories: the applications of the gauge theory to 4-manifold topology, the differential geometry of holomorphic vector bundles, and certain aspects of symplectic geometry. He spurred great interest in the gauge theory by discovering deep connections between four-dimensional topology and Yang-Mills theory, and by using ideas from that theory to solve problems of mathematics.

A highly acclaimed mathematician, Donaldson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London at the age of 29, and simultaneously awarded the Field Medal, the highest honor in mathematics. Furthermore, he received several awards, including the Royal Medal of the Royal Society (1992), the Crafoord Prize of the Swedish Royal Academy of Science (1994), and the Polya Prize of the London Mathematical Society (1999). His other honors include plenary lectureships at the International and the European Congresses of Mathematicians and the International Congress of Mathematical Physics. He was elected a Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2000, and an Honorary Fellow of Pembroke College (Cambridge University) and St. Anne’s College (Oxford University). He published numerous original articles, conference papers, books and book chapters and supervised some 35 graduate students at Oxford University. He also served on the editorial boards of major mathematical journals and was Chief Editor of Topology for 6 years. He also served on the Council of the London Mathematical Society and the Scientific Committees of the Max Planck Institute, the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (Institute for Advanced Scientific Studies) and the Newton Institute at Cambridge. From 1988-2002, he was the Vice-President of the International Mathematical Union.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Mudumbai Narasimhan received his B.A. (honors) in Mathematics in Madras in 1953 and his Ph.D. Bombay in 1960. He served as Professor of Mathematics at India’s preeminent Tata Institute of Fundamental Research for more than 25 years, and was named Professor of Eminence at the Institute in 1990. Between 1993-1999, he was Director of Mathematics at the International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy. Under his leadership, the center became internationally recognized for its excellence in algebraic geometry, and for providing training and research opportunities for hundreds of researchers and students from various countries. From 2000-2003, Narasimhan was Visiting Professor at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA). in Trieste. He is currently Honorary Fellow of the Tata Institute.

Narasimhan’s work was primarily focused on algebraic geometry, particularly the theory of holomorphic vector bundles on compact Riemann surfaces. However, over the past 35 years, his work covered nearly all other aspects of mathematics, and linked with the works of the greatest mathematicians, while maintaining its high originality and impeccable taste.

Narasimhan’s brilliant career as a mathematician and educator took him to major universities and institutions worldwide, and won him the admiration of the community of mathematicians. He was recognized by other prestigious national and international honors. He was a member of the Royal Society of London, a Chevalier de l’ordre National du Mérite (France), and a recipient of the Padma Bhushan, awarded by the President of India. He was a President of the National Board for Higher Mathematics in India, a President of the International Mathematical Union’s Commission on Development and Exchange, a Vice-President of the International Center of Pure and Applied Mathematics in France, and a member of the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union. In 2002, a special symposium entitled “A Colloquium in Geometry” was held in honor of Narasimhan’s 70th birthday, in which his students and peers discussed his enormous contributions to mathematics.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Frank Wilczek obtained his B.S. in mathematics from the University of Chicago, M.S. degree in mathematics and physics, and his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University. He became a full Professor at Princeton at the age of 28. In 1980, he joined the University of California, Santa Barbara as a full professor, where he later became the Chancellor Robert Huttenbach Professor of Physics. In 1989, he moved to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, where he became the J. Robert Oppenheimer Professor. In 2000, he was appointed as the Herman Feshbach chair of Physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently a Professor at MIT and also an Adjunct Professor at the Centro de Estudios Científicos of Valdivia, Chile. He was a Sloan Foundation Fellow, MacArthur Foundation Fellow, visiting professor at Harvard University and Lorentz Professor at Leiden University.

Professor Wilczek is best known for the discovery of asymptotic freedom, the development of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the invention of axions, and the discovery and exploitation of new forms of quantum statistics (anyons). When only 21 years old and a graduate student at Princeton University working with D. Gross, he defined the properties of color gluons, which hold atomic nuclei together. This groundbreaking discovery made possible the elucidation of QCD as the correct model for the Strong Force, one of the four known forces in nature.

In addition to over 350 scientific articles and an impressive list of invited lectures, Professor Wilczek also devotes considerable effort to reflecting on the broader philosophical meaning of results in modern physics, and to communicating these results to a broader scientific audience. He contributes regularly to Physics Today and to Nature explaining topics at the frontiers of Physics. These efforts have been warmly received and have won him the Lilienfeld Prize. His popular lecture “The World’s Numerical Recipe” is globally available on the Internet, while two of his pieces were anthologized in Best American Scientific Writing (2003, 2005). Together with his wife, he wrote a beautiful book, Longing for the Harmonies.

His outstanding contributions earned him many awards and honors including the UNESCO’s Dirac Medal, the Sakurai Prize of the American Physical Society, the Michelson Prize from Case Western University and the Lorentz Medal of the Netherlands Academy. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences of the United States, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, and the Netherlands Academy of Sciences. He is a Trustee of the University of Chicago, Editor in Chief of Annals of Physics and advisory editor or member of editorial board for several other periodicals.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Federico Capasso obtained his Ph.D. in Physics, summa cum laude, from the University of Rome, and an Honorary Doctorate in Electronic Engineering from the University of Bologna in 2003. He worked for 26 years at Bell Laboratories before moving to Harvard University, where he is currently the Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Professor Capasso is an exceptionally creative scientist operating at the interface between applied and basic science and electronic engineering. He made seminal contributions to the physics and technology of semiconductor nanostructures, with profound impact on quantum electronics, photonics, solid-state science and technology. The quantum cascade laser (QCL), which he invented while working at Bell Laboratories, represents the greatest of his many remarkable contributions.

Professor Capasso is internationally known for his pioneering research in band-structure or bandgap engineering, which allows devices to be tailored to specific applications, thus opening up research directions and commercial possibilities in photonics, electronics and nanotechnology. His invention of quantum cascade laser (QCLs), a fundamentally new light source, has revolutionized infrared science and technology by giving access to the mid-infrared spectrum and has found wide-ranging applications in various scientific and industrial fields including chemical sensing, medical diagnostics, spectroscopy and trace gas analysis. Capasso’s many other contributions include multilayer low-noise avalanche photodiodes, the solid-state photomultiplier and seminal earlier work with quantum electron devices that revived interest in multilevel logic and coding.

He has authored and co-authored over 300 scientific articles and has received numerous awards and honors for his research and achievements. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the UK Institute of Physics, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the International Society for Optical Engineering, and the American Physical Society. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, and Honorary Member of the Franklin Institute.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Anton Zeilingerreceived his Ph.D. in physics and mathematics from the University of Vienna in 1971. He is currently a professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Vienna, and a Scientific Director of the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Professor Zeilinger is one of the world’s leading quantum physicists. He works both on theoretical and experimental foundations of quantum physics, and a primary focus of his research is entanglement, the deep connectedness of distant systems. He started the field of multi-particle entanglement, which became a crucial ingredient for any future quantum computer. He carried out the first entanglement-based quantum communication, the first quantum teleportation, the first experimental quantum teleportation, and the first quantum cryptography with entangled photons. These groundbreaking achievements contributed significantly to a new understanding of fundamental issues in the interpretation of quantum mechanics, where information is the central theme. Another focus of his work has been to investigate quantum features of large particles and the transition between quantum mechanics and classical physics. Zellinger made the first experimental demonstration of quantum interference of Buckminster-Fullerenes and biologically relevant macromolecules. He is currently studying the quantum behavior of real mechanical systems, such as mechanical oscillators (micro-mirrors).

Professor Zeilinger published more than 335 scientific articles and 11 books, and presented more than 500 invited lectures worldwide. He was awarded numerous honors, including the German Order of Merit, the Senior Humboldt Award, the Klopsteg Memorial Award and the Lorenz-Oken Medal of the German Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2005, he was listed by the “New Statesman” newspaper among the “10 people who could change the world.” He is a fellow or honorary fellow of many prestigious scientific academies and societies, and recipient of two honorary doctorates. He took professorships and visiting positions at many prestigious institutions including the Technical University of Munich, the Technical University of Vienna, MIT (USA), Humboldt University (Berlin), Oxford University and the College de France in Paris. He is also an Honorary Professor at the University of Science and Technology of China. To share his excitement about quantum physics with a broader audience, Professor Zellinger published “Einsteins Schleier” (Einstein’s Veil) in 2003, which later became a German-language bestseller.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Semir Zekiobtained his Ph.D. in anatomy from University College in London (UCL), followed by post-doctoral research in the United States. Over the next three decades, he pursued a distinguished career in neurobiology, and became a Professor of Neurobiology at UCL in 1981. Zeki is a Fellow of the prestigious Royal Society (London), foreign member of the American Philosophical Society, Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (London), and member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Academia Europaea. He is also a member of the Scientific Board of Governors at the Scripps Research Institute.

Professor Zeki’s lifetime contributions are centered on the organization of the visual cortex in humans and other primates. One of his earlier keynote findings was the discovery that specific areas of the visual cortex engage in segregated responses to either color vision or visual motion stimulation, and that color and visual motion are perceived at different times. He described how colors are represented in the visual cortex and how that region uses color-coded cells to process color images. From the wealth of information that he gathered over several years on vision and motion pathways, Zeki formulated an overall theory of visual consciousness in which he proposed that the visual brain contains several, parallel and functionally specialized processing areas. Subsequently, he developed a novel psychophysical technique which showed that the cortical regions processing a visual stimulus are also involved in its perception. This cutting-edge discovery provided the basis for his revolutionary concept that consciousness is not a unity, but an assembly of numerous micro consciousnesses distributed both in time and space. He is studying how these visual micro consciousnesses are integrated to produce a unified perception of the visual scene.

Professor Zeki’s seminal contributions to the biology of vision were recognized by numerous other prizes, invited lectureships, and membership of learned societies and editorial boards. He authored or co-authored some 180 papers and four books. His main interest outside his work lies on learning more about art and creativity as manifestations of brain activity and this has led him to engage with artists and write about their work; for instance, his books Inner Vision, which has been translated into 6 languages, and La Quête de l’essentiel – jointly with the late French painter Balthus – as well as articles about Dante, Michelangelo and Wagner). This has also led him to establish the Institute of Neuroaesthetics in Berkeley, CA in 2001.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Koji Nakanishi received his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Nagoya University, followed by post-graduate studies at Harvard University (U.S.A.), then obtained his Ph.D. in chemistry from Nagoya University in 1954. He taught in three of the leading universities in Japan, namely, Nagoya, Kyaiku, and Tahoka. In 1969, he joined Columbia University’s (CU) Department of Chemistry, where he was appointed as a Centennial Professor of Chemistry in 1980. He was also a Chairman of the Chemistry Department at CU, a founding member and a Director of Research at the International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Kenya, and the first Director of the Suntry Institute for Bioorganic Research in Osaka, Japan. He played a significant role in establishing the Brazilian government’s Institute of Medicinal and Ecological Chemistry, a center of excellence in the Amazons with headquarters in Sao Paulo. He also initiated a chemistry unit within Biosphere 2, Arizona, operated by CU.

Professor Nakanishi was a leading figure in the isolation and structure determination of biologically active natural products. He designed versatile techniques to study these products beyond the limits imposed by the miniscule quantity of material; this enabled him to determine the structure of more than 350 compounds and to elucidate the structural basis for the activity of some carcinogens, neurotoxins, anti-cancer agents, and other bioactive compounds that affect human, animal, and plant life. His long-term studies on the interaction of light with rhodopsin, the pigment molecule responsible for vision, are close to solving the mystery of macular degeneration, a condition that can cause blindness and for which no treatment is presently known.

Professor Nakanishi published more than 700 papers and authored, co-authored, and edited 9 books on spectroscopy and natural products, including the 8-volume text: Comprehensive Natural Products Chemistry (jointly with D.H.R. Barton) and his 1991 autobiography: A Wandering Natural Products Chemist, published by the American Chemical Society. The 425 former students of Nakanishi’s and members of his research group (95 in Japan and 330 at CU) are now occupying leading positions around the world.

Professor Nakanishi was the most decorated chemist in the world; he received numerous prestigious awards and honors by over a dozen different nations and by numerous scientific organizations. The Emperor of Japan awarded him the title of “Person of Cultural Merit,” which is considered one of the highest awards in Japan. A major prize was named for him; the Nakanishi Prize of the American Chemical Society and the Chemical Society of Japan. He was also awarded honorary doctorates from Williams College, Georgetown University and the University of Uppsala. In 1999, a group of his former students and post-doctoral fellows published The Biology – Chemistry Interface: A Tribute to Koji Nakanishi. Apart from being an exceptionally talented chemist, Nakanishi was also a talented magician.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.