Science & invention
Isadore Singer
1924–2021 · mathematician
Mathematician who, with Michael Atiyah, proved the Atiyah–Singer index theorem, a bridge between geometry and physics; born and raised in Detroit.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Boxborough, Massachusetts
aged 96- Birth name
- Isadore Manuel Singer
- Also known as
- I. M. Singer
- Detroit years
- 1924–1941
- Field
- Science & invention
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Singer was born in Detroit in 1924 to Polish Jewish immigrants who had met and married in Toronto before settling in Detroit. He grew up in the city, enjoying both science and reading at school, and entered the University of Michigan in 1941, where he studied physics and graduated in 1944 after only two and a half years so that he could join the Army. After the war he switched to mathematics, earning his doctorate at the University of Chicago, and spent most of his career at MIT, with years at Berkeley. In 1962–1963 he and Michael Atiyah proved the index theorem that links the analysis of differential equations to the topology of spaces, a result that became a working tool of theoretical physics. He co-founded the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley and shared the 2004 Abel Prize with Atiyah.
Highlights
- Atiyah–Singer index theorem, proved with Michael Atiyah (1962–1963)
- Abel Prize, 2004, shared with Michael Atiyah
- National Medal of Science, 1983
- Co-founder of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley
- University of Michigan physics graduate, 1944