Michael Artin (; born 28 June 1934) is an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

and a professor emeritus in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Mathematics Department, known for his contributions to

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics which uses abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, to solve geometry, geometrical problems. Classically, it studies zero of a function, zeros of multivariate polynomials; th ...

.Faculty profile
, MIT mathematics department, retrieved 2011-01-03

Life and career

Artin was born in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

, Germany, and brought up in

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

. His parents were Natalia Naumovna Jasny (Natascha) and

Emil Artin Emil Artin (; March 3, 1898 – December 20, 1962) was an Austrians, Austrian mathematician of Armenians, Armenian descent. Artin was one of the leading mathematicians of the twentieth century. He is best known for his work on algebraic number t ...

, preeminent algebraist of the 20th century of

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

descent. Artin's parents left Germany in 1937, because his mother's father was

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

. His elder sister is , who was married to mathematician John Tate until the late 1980s. Artin did his undergraduate studies at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, receiving an A.B. in 1955. He then moved to

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, where he received a Ph.D. in 1960 under the supervision of Oscar Zariski, defending a thesis about Enriques surfaces. In the early 1960s, Artin spent time at the IHÉS in France, contributing to the SGA4 volumes of the Séminaire de géométrie algébrique, on

topos theory In mathematics, a topos (, ; plural topoi or , or toposes) is a category that behaves like the category of sheaves of sets on a topological space (or more generally, on a site). Topoi behave much like the category of sets and possess a notion ...

and étale cohomology, jointly with

Alexander Grothendieck Alexander Grothendieck, later Alexandre Grothendieck in French (; ; ; 28 March 1928 – 13 November 2014), was a German-born French mathematician who became the leading figure in the creation of modern algebraic geometry. His research ext ...

. He also collaborated with Barry Mazur to define étale homotopy theory which has become an important tool in algebraic geometry, and applied ideas from algebraic geometry (such as the Nash approximation) to the study of

diffeomorphism In mathematics, a diffeomorphism is an isomorphism of differentiable manifolds. It is an invertible function that maps one differentiable manifold to another such that both the function and its inverse are continuously differentiable. Definit ...

s of

compact manifold In mathematics, a closed manifold is a manifold Manifold with boundary, without boundary that is Compact space, compact. In comparison, an open manifold is a manifold without boundary that has only ''non-compact'' components. Examples The onl ...

s. His work on the problem of characterising the

representable functor In mathematics, particularly category theory, a representable functor is a certain functor from an arbitrary category into the category of sets. Such functors give representations of an abstract category in terms of known structures (i.e. sets an ...

s in the category of schemes has led to the Artin approximation theorem in local algebra as well as the "Existence theorem". This work also gave rise to the ideas of an algebraic space and

algebraic stack In mathematics, an algebraic stack is a vast generalization of algebraic spaces, or schemes, which are foundational for studying moduli theory. Many moduli spaces are constructed using techniques specific to algebraic stacks, such as Artin's re ...

, and has proved very influential in moduli theory. He also has made important contributions to the

deformation theory In mathematics, deformation theory is the study of infinitesimal conditions associated with varying a solution ''P'' of a problem to slightly different solutions ''P''ε, where ε is a small number, or a vector of small quantities. The infinitesima ...

of algebraic varieties, serving as the basis for all future work in this area of algebraic geometry. With Peter Swinnerton-Dyer, he provided a resolution of the Shafarevich-Tate conjecture for elliptic

K3 surface In mathematics, a complex analytic K3 surface is a compact connected complex manifold of dimension 2 with а trivial canonical bundle and irregularity of a surface, irregularity zero. An (algebraic) K3 surface over any field (mathematics), field ...

s and the pencil of elliptic curves over finite fields. He contributed to the theory of surface singularities which are both fundamental and seminal. The rational singularity and fundamental cycles, which are used in matroid theory, are such examples of his sheer originality and thinking. He began to turn his interest from

to noncommutative algebra (

noncommutative ring In mathematics, a noncommutative ring is a ring whose multiplication is not commutative; that is, there exist ''a'' and ''b'' in the ring such that ''ab'' and ''ba'' are different. Equivalently, a ''noncommutative ring'' is a ring that is not ...

theory), especially geometric aspects, after a talk by Shimshon Amitsur and an encounter in

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

with Claudio Procesi and Lance W. Small, "which prompted isfirst foray into ring theory". Today, he is a recognized world authority in noncommutative algebraic geometry.

Awards

In 2002, Artin won the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

's annual Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement. In 2005, he was awarded the Harvard Centennial Medal. In 2013, he won the Wolf Prize in Mathematics, and in 2015 was awarded the

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral science, behavior ...

from the President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

. He is also a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

and a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

(1969), the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the

. He is a Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and Honorary Fellow of the Moscow Mathematical Society, and was awarded honorary doctorates from the universities of Hamburg and

Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

. He was invited to give a talk on the topic "The Étale Topology of Schemes" 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 ...

in 1966 in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Books

As author

*with Barry Mazur: * * *in collaboration with Alexandru Lascu & Jean-François Boutot: *with notes by C.S. Sephardi & Allen Tannenbaum: * *

As editor

*with David Mumford: *with John Tate: *with Hanspeter Kraft & Reinhold Remmert:

References

External links

*
Michael Artin
at MIT Mathematics
National Medal of Science
{{DEFAULTSORT:Artin, Michael 1934 births Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Algebraic geometers American algebraists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics German people of Armenian descent Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States German people of Austrian descent Harvard University alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Presidents of the American Mathematical Society Wolf Prize in Mathematics laureates