Simon Kirwan Donaldson, born in Cambridge in 1957, is an English mathematician famous for his work on the topology of smooth (differentiable) four-dimensional manifolds. Shown within Cambridgeshire Geography Status: City (1951) Region: East of England Admin. ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London (de facto) Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2006 est. ... A Möbius strip, a surface with only one side and one edge; such shapes are an object of study in topology. ... On a sphere, the sum of the angles of a triangle is not equal to 180°. A sphere is not a Euclidean space, but locally the laws of the Euclidean geometry are good approximations. ...

Donaldson gained a BA in mathematics from Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1979, and in 1980 began postgraduate work at Worcester College, Oxford, first under Nigel Hitchin and later under Atiyah's supervision. Still a graduate student, Donaldson soon proved in 1982 a result that would establish his fame. He published the result in a paper Self-dual connections and the topology of smooth 4-manifolds which appeared in 1983. In the words of Atiyah, the paper "stunned the mathematical world". Bachelor of Arts (B.A., BA or A.B.), from the Latin Artium Baccalaureus is an undergraduate bachelors degree awarded for either a course or a program in the liberal arts or the sciences, or both. ... Euclid, Greek mathematician, 3rd century BC, as imagined by by Raphael in this detail from The School of Athens. ... Full name Pembroke College Motto - Named after Countess of Pembroke, Mary de St Pol Previous names Marie Valence Hall (1347), Pembroke Hall (?), Pembroke College (1856) Established 1347 Sister College(s) Queens College Master Sir Richard Dearlove Location Trumpington Street Undergraduates ~420 Postgraduates ~240 Homepage Boatclub Pembroke College is a... For the song by The Smashing Pumpkins, see 1979 (song). ... 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... College name Worcester College Collegium Vigorniense Named after Sir Thomas Cookes, Worcestershire Established 1714 Sister College St Catharines College Provost Richard Smethurst JCR President Minesh Tanna Undergraduates 408 MCR President Tom Marshall Graduates 167 Homepage Worcester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in... Nigel Hitchin (b. ... Sir Michael Francis Atiyah, OM, FRS (born 22 April 1929) is a mathematician who was born in London. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Whereas Michael Freedman classified topological four-manifolds, Donaldson's work focused on four-manifolds admitting a differentiable structure, using instantons, a particular solution to the equations of Yang-Mills gauge theory which has its origin in quantum field theory. One of Donaldson's first results gave severe restrictions on the intersection form of a smooth four-manifold. As a consequence, a large class of the topological four-manifolds do not admit any smooth structure at all. Donaldson also derived polynomial invariants from gauge theory. These were new topological invariants sensitive to the underlying smooth structure of the four-manifold. They made it possible to deduce the existence of "exotic" smooth structures - certain topological four-manifolds could carry an infinite family of different smooth structures. Michael Hartley Freedman (born 21 April 1951 in Los Angeles, California, USA) is a mathematician at Microsoft Research. ... An instanton or pseudoparticle is a notion appearing in theoretical and mathematical physics. ... In physics, gauge theories are a class of physical theories based on the idea that symmetry transformations can be performed locally as well as globally. ... Quantum field theory (QFT) is the application of quantum mechanics to fields. ... In mathematics, intersection theory is a branch of algebraic geometry, where subvarieties are intersected on an algebraic variety, and of algebraic topology, where intersections are computed within the cohomology ring. ... In physics, gauge theories are a class of physical theories based on the idea that symmetry transformations can be performed locally as well as globally. ...

After gaining his doctorate from Oxford University in 1983, Donaldson was appointed a Junior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, he spent the academic year 1983–84 at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and returned to Oxford as Wallis Professor of Mathematics in 1985. In 1999, he moved to Imperial College London. The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... College name All Souls College Collegium Omnium Animarum Named after Feast of All Souls Established 1438 Sister College Trinity Hall, Cambridge Warden Dr. John Davis JCR President None Undergraduates None MCR President None Graduates 8 (approx. ... Fuld Hall The Institute for Advanced Study is a private institution in Princeton Township, New Jersey, U.S.A. (although it is not part of Princeton University), designed to foster pure cutting-edge research by scientists in a variety of fields without the complications of teaching or funding, or the... Princeton University is a coeducational private university located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States of America. ... The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... Imperial College London is a prestigious (ranked 4th in the world for Engineering & Technology) British academic institution focusing on science, engineering and medicine, complemented by a business school. ...

Donaldson received the Junior Whitehead Prize from the London Mathematical Society in 1985 and in the following year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and, also in 1986, he received a Fields Medal. Ironically he was turned down for fellowship of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications on the grounds that he applied too soon after his doctorate. He was awarded the 1994 Crafoord Prize. The London Mathematical Society (LMS) is the leading mathematical society in England. ... 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Fellowship of the Royal Society was founded in 1660. ... The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union, a meeting that takes place every four years. ... The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA) is one of the UKs professional bodies for mathematicians (the other main ones being the London Mathematical Society and the Royal Statistical Society). ... The Crafoord Prize was established in 1980 by Holger Crafoord, the inventor of the artificial kidney, and his wife Anna-Greta Crafoord. ...

Donaldson now lives with his wife and children in England and he still works in Imperial College Royal School of Mines Entrance Imperial College London is a college of the University of London which focuses on science and technology, and is located in South Kensington in London. ...

External links

• O'Connor, John J., and Edmund F. Robertson. "Simon Donaldson". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
• Simon Donaldson at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• Home page at Imperial College

The Mathematics Genealogy Project is a web-based database that gives an academic genealogy based on dissertation supervision relations. ...

References

• Donaldson, S. K. An application of gauge theory to four-dimensional topology. J. Differential Geom., 18, (1983), 279–315.
• Donaldson, S. K. Self-dual connections and the topology of smooth 4-manifolds. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.. 8, (1983), 81–83.
• Donaldson, S. K. and Kronheimer, P. B. The geometry of four-manifolds. Oxford Mathematical Monographs, Oxford University Press, New York, (1990) ISBN 0-19-853553-8.

Oxford University Press (OUP) is a highly-respected publishing house and a department of the University of Oxford in England. ...