George Mostow | |
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Born | July 4, 1923 |
Died | April 4, 2017 | (aged 93)
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Harvard University |
Known for | Mostow's rigidity theorem Mostow–Palais theorem |
Awards | Wolf Prize (2013) Leroy P. Steele Prize (1993) |
Scientific career | |
Institutions | Syracuse University Johns Hopkins University Yale University |
Thesis | The Extensibility of Local Lie Groups of Transformations and Groups on Surfaces (1948) |
Doctoral advisor | Garrett Birkhoff |
George Daniel Mostow (July 4, 1923 – April 4, 2017) was an American mathematician, renowned for his contributions to Lie theory. He was the Henry Ford II (emeritus) Professor of Mathematics at Yale University, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the 49th president of the American Mathematical Society (1987–1988), and a trustee of the Institute for Advanced Study from 1982 to 1992.[1]
The rigidity phenomenon for lattices in Lie groups he discovered and explored is known as Mostow rigidity. His work on rigidity played an essential role in the work of three Fields medalists, namely Grigori Margulis, William Thurston, and Grigori Perelman. In 1993 he was awarded the American Mathematical Society's Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research. In 2013, he was awarded the Wolf Prize in Mathematics "for his fundamental and pioneering contribution to geometry and Lie group theory."[2]