Sir Erik Christopher Zeeman (born February 4, 1925), is a mathematician known for work in geometric topology and singularity theory.

He was born in Aarhus, Denmark, and received a B.A. and Ph. D. from the University of Cambridge. After working at Cambridge, as well as the University of Chicago, Princeton and the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, he founded the Mathematics Department and Mathematics Research Centre at the University of Warwick in 1964.

He remained a Professor at Warwick until 1988, when he became Principal of Hertford College, Oxford. Zeeman was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1975 and received a knighthood in 1991.

Zeeman's main contribution to mathematics was in topology, particularly in the piecewise linear category, and dynamical systems. However, he is better known to the general public for his contribution to, and spreading awareness of catastrophe theory, which was due initially to another topologist René Thom. He was especially active encouraging the application of mathematics, and catastrophe theory in particular, to biology and behavioural sciences.

External links

• MacTutor biography (http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Zeeman.html)
• Interview in CIM Bulletin (http://at.yorku.ca/i/a/a/h/14.htm)