[snarks_when_bored]

 

A wide-ranging and fascinating interview with world-class Japanese mathematician Heisuke Hironaka (Fields Medal recipient in 1970). The interview was conducted for the Notices of the American Mathematical Society by senior writer and deputy editor Allyn Jackson.

Hironaka discusses his early life and education (including his lousy piano playing), his Fields Medal work, his encounters with other great mathematicians and his views on the nature of mathematics.

When he says he's not a genius, don't believe him.

This is another 'by-hand' conversion of an original PDF file to HTML (so it may contain a typographical infelicity or three). Download a PDF version of this interview to view the many photos included in the Notices edition:

Interview with Heisuke Hironaka

[And for the intrepid with <irony> a few free hours on their hands </irony>, here's a rather compact (no pun intended) presentation of Hironaka's work by János Kollár:

"Resolution of Singularities – Seattle Lecture" (PDF format).]

 

[snarks_when_bored]

Ping

[BipolarBob]

He is best known for his 1964 work on the resolution of singularities of algebraic varieties over a field of characteristic zero

ought times ought is ought. Jethro Bodeen

[SuziQ]

Something in which you might be interested!

[snowsislander]

Thank you for posting this excellent article.

[blake6900]

zzzzzzzZZZZzzzzzzzz........zzzzzzzzZZZZzzzzzzz........

[Graymatter]

"Singularities are all over the place."
Too true!

[TIGHTEN]

"For instance, now I am teaching the first-graders Euler’s formula, the relation between the number of faces and edges and vertices of a polygon. They are amazingly intuitive and can guess the answer."

Oh man we're in trouble.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

I had a linear algebra professor who drilled into me the meaning of the Null Space endlessly. At the end of the course I had about as much understanding of null spaces as I had from any Marxist explaining the meaning of the Negation of the Negation. I have nothing, non, no, nada, naught, or ought to do with intellectuals anymore. There ain't nutting there.

[rackatoot]

Fascinating interview. I read the whole thing without falling asleep, and I'm not math-minded. I saw the title and don't know why I read it.

[Old Professer]

I accumulate anything to do with numbers. For instance, I have more than 10,000 photos of flowers and leaves. I like to just count the numbers and compare them.

Here is how you can make a singularity. You take some manifold, grab some part of it, crush it to a point, and that’s a singularity. So the singularity itself has a geometry. Stephen Hawking has said that in a black hole there is another universe. A singularity is like that: if you really look inside it, then you see a big universe. So the problem of dealing with singularities is that the singularity is just one point, but it has many, many things in it. Now, to see what is in it, you must blow it up, magnify it, and make it smooth, and then you can see the whole picture. That’s resolution of singularities. What Mori does is he creates a singularity by collapsing something.

This is quite an interesting feature of human nature. To my way of thinking, humans are different from other animals in that humans have a notion of infinity. They never see infinity, they never live infinitely, and even the universe may not last infinitely long. But humans cannot live without the idea of infinity.

This is the reason that people create religions. Religions say that the world is much longer and the universe is much bigger than you can reach within a lifetime. So then you feel better. Infinity is like a belief. If you have a belief in infinity or eternity, you feel happier.

I guess we do have to stop and smell the roses.

[MrNatural]

Very nice, Snarks. Thanks for posting this facinating article

[RATkiller]

The part about Italian algebraic geometry reminded me that I took a course in algebraic geometry from an Italian professor. He was a great guy and liked anyone who had an interest in geometry. When the students had a discussion with him about problems or research; if you were wrong about something he would not pounce on you and rip you to shreds as most other professors would. He would say something like "You are totally wrong but essentially correct !!"

[Iris7]

I have a desire to try number theory. This time for real.

"Once more into the breach, dear friends!"

[NonLinear]

Singularity bookmark!