Erwin Bolthausen (born 15 October 1945 in

Rohr, Aargau Until the first of January 2010 Rohr () was a municipality in the district of Aarau in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland. At the beginning of 2010 Rohr became a suburb of Aarau.mathematical physics Mathematical physics is the development of mathematics, mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The ''Journal of Mathematical Physics'' defines the field as "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the de ...

Education and career

Bolthausen received his doctorate in mathematics under

Beno Eckmann Beno Eckmann (31 March 1917 – 25 November 2008) was a Switzerland, Swiss mathematician who made contributions to algebraic topology, homological algebra, group theory, and differential geometry. Life Born to a Jewish family in Bern, Eckmann r ...

in 1973 from

ETH Zurich ETH Zurich (; ) is a public university in Zurich, Switzerland. Founded in 1854 with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists, the university focuses primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. ETH Zurich ran ...

. Bolthausen's thesis was entitled ''Einfache Isomorphietypen in lokalisierten Kategorien und einfache Homotopietypen von Polyeder'' (Simple isomorphic types in localized categories and simple homotopy types of polyhedra). In 1978 he completed his habilitation at the

University of Konstanz The University of Konstanz () is a university in the city of Konstanz in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Its main campus was opened on the Gießberg in 1972 after being founded in 1966. The university is Germany's southernmost university and is ...

and was then an associate professor of mathematics at the

Goethe University Frankfurt Goethe University Frankfurt () is a public research university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealthy and active liberal citizenry of Frankfurt ...

for the academic year 1978–1979. From 1979 to 1990 he was a full professor at

Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin; also known as Berlin Institute of Technology and Technical University of Berlin, although officially the name should not be translated) is a public university, public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was the first ...

. Since 1990 he is a full professor at the

University of Zurich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...

, (with CV & links to many preprints) where he headed the ''Institut für Mathematik'' from 1998 to 2001. In the early years of his career Bolthausen did research on martingale convergence theorems, combinatorial limit theorems, and the

large deviations theory In probability theory, the theory of large deviations concerns the asymptotic behaviour of remote tails of sequences of probability distributions. While some basic ideas of the theory can be traced to Laplace, the formalization started with insura ...

. Later in his career he dealt with stochastic models in mathematical physics, such as wandering in random media, phenomena related to random interfaces (

entropic repulsion Entropy is a scientific concept, most commonly associated with states of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynamics, where it was first recognized, to the microsc ...

wetting Wetting is the ability of a liquid to displace gas to maintain contact with a solid surface, resulting from intermolecular interactions when the two are brought together. These interactions occur in the presence of either a gaseous phase or ...

phenomena),

spin glass In condensed matter physics, a spin glass is a magnetic state characterized by randomness, besides cooperative behavior in freezing of spins at a temperature called the "freezing temperature," ''T''f. In ferromagnetic solids, component atoms' ...

es, and

polymer A polymer () is a chemical substance, substance or material that consists of very large molecules, or macromolecules, that are constituted by many repeat unit, repeating subunits derived from one or more species of monomers. Due to their br ...

s in random media. Bolthausen has been a member of the

German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (), in short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founded on 1 January 1652, based on academic models in Italy, it was originally named the ''Academi ...

since 2007. From 1995 to 2000 he was a member of the council of the

Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach The Oberwolfach Research Institute for Mathematics () is a center for mathematical research in Oberwolfach, Germany. It was founded by mathematician Wilhelm Süss in 1944. It organizes weekly workshops on diverse topics where mathematicians and ...

. He is since 2002 a member of the scientific advisory board of the ''École d'Eté de Probabilités de Saint-Flour'' and since 1994 a member of the Board of Trustees of the

Swiss National Science Foundation The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF, German: , SNF; French: , FNS; Italian: ) is a science research support organisation mandated by the Swiss Federal Government. The Swiss National Science Foundation was established under private law b ...

. He was an associate editor from 1987 to 1989 for the ''

Annals of Statistics The ''Annals of Statistics'' is a peer-reviewed statistics journal published by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. It was started in 1973 as a continuation in part of the '' Annals of Mathematical Statistics (1930)'', which was split into ...

'' and from 1988 to 1993 for the ''

Annals of Probability ''Annals of Probability'' is a leading peer-reviewed probability journal published by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, which is the main international society for researchers in the areas probability and statistics. The journal was started ...

''. For the journal ''

Probability Theory and Related Fields '' Probability Theory and Related Fields'' is a peer-reviewed mathematics journal published by Springer. Established in 1962, it was originally named ''Zeitschrift für Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie und verwandte Gebiete'', with the English replacin ...

'' he was editor-in-chief from 1994 to 2000 and is an associate editor since 2000. Bolthausen was in 2002 in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

an invited speaker with talk '' Localization-delocalization phenomena for random interfaces '' at the

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the IMU Abacus Medal (known before ...

and in 1996 in Budapest with talk ''Large deviations and perturbations of random walks and random surfaces'' at the

European Congress of Mathematicians The European Congress of Mathematics (ECM) is the second largest international conference of the mathematics community, after the International Congresses of Mathematicians (ICM). The ECM are held every four years and are timed precisely between ...

Selected publications

Articles

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Books

*as editor with Anton Bovier: *with A. Sznitman:

References

External links

Workshop ''Probabilistic Techniques in Statistical Mechanics'', TU Berlin 2010, in celebration of Erwin Bolthausen's 65th birthday
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bolthausen, Erwin 1945 births Living people 20th-century Swiss mathematicians ETH Zurich alumni University of Konstanz alumni Academic staff of Technische Universität Berlin Academic staff of the University of Zurich Members of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina Probability Theory and Related Fields editors Probability theorists Presidents of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics