| 1 | Name: | Dr. I. M. Singer | |
| Institution: | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | ||
| Year Elected: | 1985 | ||
| Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 104. Mathematics | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Deceased | ||
| Birth Date: | 1924 | ||
| Death Date: | February 11, 2021 | ||
Noted for his work with Sir Michael Atiyah on the Atiyah-Singer index theorem, I.M. Singer was Institute Professor of Mathematics Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He began his teaching career at M.I.T. in 1950 after earning a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. In addition to spending much of his career at M.I.T, he has also served on the faculties of the University of California, Los Angeles (1952-54), Columbia University (1955), the Institute for Advanced Study (1955-56) and Harvard University (1984-). In his research Dr. Singer has covered deeper analytic properties of partial differential equations on manifold turnout that depend on ideas from differential geometry. He made decisive advances in this direction and applied his understanding of geometry to the use of fiber bundles for Yang-Mills fields, sparking a convergence between theoretical physics and mathematics. Additionally, his spectacular development of the Atiyah-Singer index theorem described how the index of an elliptic differential operator on a compact manifold can be determined by topolotical variance. He has applied these ideas to Yang-Mills fields in stantors and non-abelian theories. Dr. Singer has been honored with the National Medal of Science (1983), the American Mathematical Society's Bocher Prize (1969) and the Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2000) and with membership in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. He has also served as chairman of the NAS Committee on Science and Public Policy (1976-80). He died on February 11, 2021. | |||