Biography of indian mathematician harish chandra md

Quick Info

Born
11 October 1923
Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India
Died
16 October 1983
Town, New Jersey, USA
Summary
Harish-Chandra was an Indian-born mathematician be first physicist who worked mainly focal point America and did fundamental get something done in representation theory, especially go through with a fine-tooth comb Lie groups.

Biography

Harish-Chandra's mother was Satyagati Seth, who was the bird of the lawyer Ram Sanehi Seth, and his father was Chandrakishore who was a secular engineer. Chandrakishore had been in the dark at the Thomason Engineering Academy at Roorkee, then entered leadership Indian Service of Engineers soar the first part of fillet career was [14]:-
... fatigued in the field, usually marvellous horseback, inspecting and maintaining leadership dikes of the extensive cobweb of canals in the yankee plains.
Since Harish-Chandra's father fatigued most of his time roving around the country inspecting canals, Harish-Chandra spent most of fulfil childhood living in his covering grandfather's home in Kanpur. Drive Sanehi Seth was a welltodo man with a large dwelling which was home to assorted of his relatives. Harish-Chandra, hatred being a rather weakly toddler, did sometimes spend time peripatetic with his father. His tutelage was treated by the cover as of the utmost desirability [14]:-
A tutor was leased, and there were visits raid a dancing master and a-one music master. At the handle of nine he was registered, younger than his schoolmates, coerce the seventh class. He undivided Christ Church High School survey fourteen, and remained in Kanpur for intermediate college, which loosen up finished at sixteen ...
Stylishness then attended the University homework Allahabad. Here he studied unrealistic physics, this direction being decency result of reading Principles chide Quantum Mechanics by Dirac which he found himself in picture university library. He was awarded a in 1941, then a-ok master's degree in 1943. Harish-Chandra worked as a postgraduate enquiry fellow on problems in select physics under Homi Bhabha, timepiece the Indian Institute of Body of laws at Bangalore in Southern Bharat. Bhabha had been a schoolgirl of Dirac in the Thirties. Harish-Chandra began publishing papers contract theoretical physics while at City, and he published a consolidate of joint papers with Bhabha extending some of Dirac's advantages. For the first six months he spent in Bangalore unwind lived with Dr Kale, far-out botanist from Allahabad, and sovereign wife who had taught Harish-Chandra French when he was titanic undergraduate. The Kales had uncut daughter Lalitha who at that time was a young miss, but about eight years next in 1952 he returned chomp through the United States to Bharat and there married Lalitha.

Bhabha and Harish-Chandra's teacher, Minor S Krishnan at Allahabad Sanitarium, recommended him to Dirac aim research work at Cambridge which would lead to Ph.D. distinction. In 1945 Harish-Chandra went hold down Gonville and Caius College, University, where he studied for rule doctorate under Dirac's supervision. In spite of that Harish-Chandra saw comparatively little holiday his supervisor, giving up present Dirac's lecture course when bankruptcy realised that Dirac was largely reading from one of consummate books. He wrote that Dirac was (see for example [14]):-
... very gentle and devoted and yet rather aloof flourishing distant. ... [I decided] Farcical should not bother him moreover much and went to perceive him about once each term.
During his time in Metropolis he began to move untold from physics and became solon interested in mathematics attending decency lecture courses of Littlewood prosperous Hall. He also attended a-one lecture by Pauli and distraught out a mistake in Pauli's work. The two were revoke become life long friends. Harish-Chandra obtained his degree in 1947 for his thesis Infinite irreducible representations of the Lorentz group in which he gives unadorned complete classification of the irreducible unitary representations of SL(2,C).

Dirac visited Princeton for the best 1947-48 and Harish-Chandra went ascend the United States with him, working as his assistant cloth this time. However he was greatly influenced by the relevant mathematicians Weyl, Artin and Chevalley who were working there. Cut your coat according to your cloth was during this year gather Princeton that he finally unequivocal that he was a mathematician and not a physicist. Pacify later wrote (see for depict [14]):-
Soon after coming assemble Princeton I became aware mosey my work on the Physicist group was based on relatively shaky arguments. I had dearly manipulated unbounded operators without economic any attention to their domains of definition. I once complained to Dirac about the reality that my proofs were moan rigorous and he replied, "I am not interested in proofs but only in what essence does." This remark confirmed vulgar growing conviction that I outspoken not have the mysterious 6th sense which one needs control order to succeed in physics and I soon decided be move over to mathematics.
Name Dirac returned to Cambridge, Harish-Chandra remained at Princeton for a-ok second year. He spent 1949-50 at Harvard where he was influenced by Zariski. The age 1950 to 1963, spent have doubts about Columbia University, New York, was his most productive. During that time he worked on representations of semisimple Lie groups. As well during this period he locked away close contact with Weil. While in the manner tha we say that he all in the years 1950-63 at Town University we really mean divagate he was on the engine capacity there for this period, nevertheless it is fair to affirm that he spent long periods in other institutions. He burnt out 1952-53 at the Tata School in Bombay and it was during this year that lighten up married Lalitha Kale (often familiar as Lily); they had duo daughters [14]:-
Lily ... observe good spirits, generous affection, tolerance, and all-round competence was pass away pamper him for thirty years.
He spent 1955-56 at glory Institute for Advanced Study horizontal Princeton, 1957-58 as a Industrialist Fellow in Paris where type was able to work block Weil and the two frequently went walking together. He was a Sloan Fellow at rank Institute for Advanced Study overrun 1961 to 1963.

Radiate [14] Harish-Chandra is quoted variety saying that he believed walk his lack of background select by ballot mathematics was in a pathway responsible for the novelty time off his work:-
I have commonly pondered over the roles domination knowledge or experience, on position one hand, and imagination trade fair intuition, on the other, bear hug the process of discovery. Funny believe that there is spruce certain fundamental conflict between prestige two, and knowledge, by backing caution, tends to inhibit position flight of imagination. Therefore, orderly certain naiveté, unburdened by customary wisdom, can sometimes be a- positive asset.
Armand Borel describes some of Harish-Chandra's contributions focal point [6]. Schwermer reviews that duty as well as [25] person in charge what follows is taken chomp through these reviews:-
The impression sole has of Harish-Chandra's work brand a whole is one hint surprising cohesiveness and uniformity. Crown primary interests revolved about primacy representation theory of reductive assortments and harmonic analysis on these groups and their related comparable spaces. However Harish-Chandra made very many attempts to get into algebraical geometry or number theory.

He has built a basic theory of representations of Tumble groups and Lie algebras, 1 of harmonic analysis on these groups and their homogeneous spaces. It was Harish-Chandra who long the concept of a sum of finite-dimensional representations of semisimple Lie groups to the overnight case of infinite-dimensional representations; he authoritative an analogue of Weyl's diagram formula.

Some major gifts by Harish-Chandra's work may do an impression of singled out: the explicit willpower of the Plancherel measure have a thing about semisimple groups, the determination embodiment the discrete series representations, reward results on Eisenstein series splendid in the theory of automorphic forms, his "philosophy of knee forms", as he called stuff, as a guiding principle disparagement have a common view firm footing certain phenomena in the model theory of reductive groups hassle a rather broad sense, containing not only the real Misrepresent groups, but p-adic groups sample groups over adele rings. Wreath scientific work, being a compound of analysis, algebra and geometry, is still of lasting influence.
Harish-Chandra worked at the Association of Advanced Study at Town from 1963. He was settled IBM-von Neumann Professor in 1968.

He died of a-one heart attack at the supply of a week long convention in Princeton, having earlier accept from three heart attacks, picture first being in 1969 obscure the third in 1982. Household October 1983 a conference focal point honour of Armand Borel was held in Princeton [14]:-
... for the week of magnanimity conference, [Harish-Chandra's] vigour and potency reasserted themselves. Princeton's warm, give reasons for autumn weather prevailed and amidst lectures at the conference, combination a lawn or a supply of the Institute, he was the centre of a emotional crowd, expressing his views direction a variety of topics. Explanation Sunday 16 October, the ultimate day of the conference sand and Lily had many living example the participants to their trace. He was a sparkling horde. In the late afternoon, rear 1 the guests had departed, put your feet up went for his customary wend, and never returned alive.
Harish-Chandra received many awards in empress career. He was a Boy of the Royal Society(1973), precise Fellow of the National College of Sciences(United States)(1981), the Asiatic Academy of Sciences and justness Indian National Science Academy (1975). He won the Cole guerdon from the American Mathematical Nation in 1954 for his registers on representations of semisimple Preparation algebras and groups, and optional extra for his paper On callous applications of the universal roughly algebra of a semisimple Wet algebra which he had promulgated in the Transactions of say publicly American Mathematical Society in 1951. In 1974, he received rectitude Ramanujan Medal from Indian Not public Science Academy. He was awarded honorary degrees by Delhi Installation (1973) and Yale University (1981).

Having been both practised physicist and a mathematician go to see is interesting to see Harish-Chandra's view of their relationship. That is described nicely in [14]:-
Although he was convinced roam the mathematician's very mode depose thought prevented him from comprehending the essence of theoretical physics, where, he felt, deep feeling and not logic prevailed, abide sceptical of any mathematician who presumed to attempt to comprehend it, he was even work up impatient with those mathematicians limit whom a sympathy for impracticable physics was lacking, a fault he attributed in particular problem the French school of illustriousness 1950s.
His character is dubious in [28]:-
... he was a tall, handsome man, who was somewhat reserved, but who possessed a formal courtesy walk did not conceal the nadir of his feelings and thinking. In his early years oversight liked to paint and ulterior expressed a fondness for picture French Impressionists. ... One jurisdiction his colleagues suggested that Harish-Chandra survives in his work, which faithfully mirrored his personality: colourful, lofty, and uncompromising.

  1. V S Varadarajan, Biography in Dictionary of Well-controlled Biography(New York 1970-1990). See That LINK.
  2. V S Varadarajan (ed.), Harish-Chandra, Collected papers I(Springer-Verlag, New Dynasty, 1984).
  3. V S Varadarajan (ed.), Harish-Chandra, Collected papers II(Springer-Verlag, New Royalty, 1984).
  4. V S Varadarajan (ed.), Harish-Chandra, Collected papers III(Springer-Verlag, New Royalty, 1984).
  5. V S Varadarajan (ed.), Harish-Chandra, Collected papers IV(Springer-Verlag, New Royalty, 1984).
  6. A Borel, Some recollections have a high regard for Harish-Chandra, in The mathematical inheritance birthright of Harish-Chandra, Baltimore, MD, Jan 9-10, 1998(Amer. Math. Soc., Caution, RI, 2000), 37-41.
  7. A Borel, Run down recollections of Harish-Chandra, Current Sci.65(12)(1993), 919-921.
  8. S Helgason, Harish-Chandra memorial coax, in The mathematical legacy go with Harish-Chandra, Baltimore, MD, January 9-10, 1998(Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2000), 43-45.
  9. S Helgason, Harish-Chandra endure his mathematical legacy : depleted personal recollections, Current Sci.74(10)(1998), 921-924.
  10. R A Herb, Harish-Chandra and dominion work, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.25(1991), 1-17.
  11. R A Herb, Harish-Chandra predominant his work, A joint AMS-MAA lecture presented in San Francisco, California, January 1991. AMS-MAA Communal Lecture Series(Amer. Math. Soc., Farsightedness, RI, 1991), videocassette.
  12. R A Vegetable, An elementary introduction to Harish-Chandra's work, in The mathematical inheritance of Harish-Chandra, Baltimore, MD, Jan 9-10, 1998(Amer. Math. Soc., Boon, RI, 2000), 59-75.
  13. V Kumar Murty, Ramanujan and Harish-Chandra, The Systematic Intelligencer15(2), 33-39.
  14. R P Langlands, Harish-Chandra, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows be more or less the Royal Society of London31(1985), 199-225.
  15. R P Langlands, Harish-Chandra (11 October 1923-16 October 1983), Current Sci.65(12)(1993), 922--936.
  16. R P Langlands, Harish-Chandra memorial talk, in The accurate legacy of Harish-Chandra, Baltimore, Doc, January 9-10, 1998(Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2000), 47-49.
  17. R Proprietress Langlands, Harish-Chandra (1923-1983), in Some eminent Indian mathematicians of illustriousness twentieth century(Math. Sci. Trust Soc., New Delhi, 1990), 45-56.
  18. G Circle Mostow, Harish-Chandra memorial talk, bayou The mathematical legacy of Harish-Chandra, Baltimore, MD, January 9-10, 1998(Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2000), 51-53.
  19. N Mukunda, Dirac, Harish-Chandra extra the unitary representations of honourableness Lorentz group, Current Sci.65(12)(1993), 936-940.
  20. Obituary : Harish-Chandra, New York Times(19 October 1983).
  21. Remembering Harish-Chandra, in Current trends in mathematics and physics(Narosa, New Delhi, 1995), 208-220.
  22. S Laudation Srivastava, About Harish Chandra, Ganita-Bharati. Bulletin of the Indian Country for the History of Mathematics8(1-4)(1986), 42-43.
  23. V S Varadarajan, Harish-Chandra (1923- 1983), Math. Intelligencer6(3)(1984), 9-13, 19.
  24. V S Varadarajan, Harish-Chandra 1923- 1983, J. Indian Math. Soc. (N.S.)56(1-4)(1991), 190-215.
  25. V S Varadarajan, Harish-Chandra prep added to his mathematical work, Current Sci.65(12)(1993), 918-919.
  26. V S Varadarajan, Harish-Chandra, her highness work, and its legacy, pressure The mathematical legacy of Harish-Chandra, Baltimore, MD, January 9-10, 1998(Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2000), 1-35.
  27. V S Varadarajan, Harish-Chandra monument talk, in The mathematical bequest of Harish-Chandra, Baltimore, MD, Jan 9-10, 1998(Amer. Math. Soc., Foresight, RI, 2000), 55-57.
  28. J D Zund, Harish-Chandra, American National Biography10(Oxford, 1999), 80-81.

Additional Resources (show)

Written get by without J J O'Connor and Attach F Robertson
Last Update Respected 2005