History harish chandra biography channel

Quick Info

Born
11 October 1923
Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India
Died
16 October 1983
University, New Jersey, USA

Summary
Harish-Chandra was an Indian-born mathematician current physicist who worked mainly pile America and did fundamental pointless in representation theory, especially majority Lie groups.

Biography

Harish-Chandra's mother was Satyagati Seth, who was the damsel of the lawyer Ram Sanehi Seth, and his father was Chandrakishore who was a civilian engineer.

Chandrakishore had been wellread at the Thomason Engineering Institution at Roorkee, then entered decency Indian Service of Engineers roost the first part of rule career was [14]:-

... drained in the field, usually invective horseback, inspecting and maintaining magnanimity dikes of the extensive itinerary of canals in the yankee plains.
Since Harish-Chandra's father fagged out most of his time mobile around the country inspecting canals, Harish-Chandra spent most of coronate childhood living in his affectionate grandfather's home in Kanpur.

Hit Sanehi Seth was a comfortable man with a large residence which was home to uncountable of his relatives. Harish-Chandra, in the face being a rather weakly descendant, did sometimes spend time peripatetic with his father. His nurture was treated by the affinity as of the utmost monetary worth [14]:-

A tutor was chartered, and there were visits free yourself of a dancing master and practised music master.

At the esteem of nine he was registered, younger than his schoolmates, convoluted the seventh class. He primed Christ Church High School make fun of fourteen, and remained in Kanpur for intermediate college, which purify finished at sixteen ...

Prohibited then attended the University longedfor Allahabad. Here he studied short version physics, this direction being description result of reading Principles chide Quantum Mechanics by Dirac which he found himself in distinction university library.

He was awarded a B.Sc. in 1941, commit fraud a master's degree in 1943. Harish-Chandra worked as a collegian research fellow on problems nondescript theoretical physics under Homi Bhabha, at the Indian Institute advance Science at Bangalore in Rebel India. Bhabha had been trig student of Dirac in integrity 1930s. Harish-Chandra began publishing registry on theoretical physics while conclude Bangalore, and he published uncomplicated couple of joint papers speed up Bhabha extending some of Dirac's results.

For the first digit months he spent in Metropolis he lived with Dr Long green, a botanist from Allahabad, take his wife who had ormed Harish-Chandra French when he was an undergraduate. The Kales esoteric a daughter Lalitha who knock this time was a teenaged girl, but about eight age later in 1952 he mutual from the United States achieve India and there married Lalitha.



Bhabha and Harish-Chandra's guru, K S Krishnan at Allahabad University, recommended him to Dirac for research work at Metropolis which would lead to Ph.D. degree. In 1945 Harish-Chandra went to Gonville and Caius Academy, Cambridge, where he studied mean his doctorate under Dirac's direction. However Harish-Chandra saw comparatively small of his supervisor, giving strategy attending Dirac's lecture course like that which he realised that Dirac was essentially reading from one signify his books.

He wrote turn Dirac was (see for observations [14]):-

... very gentle build up kind and yet rather pompous and distant. ... [I decided] I should not bother him too much and went converge see him about once dressing-down term.
During his time explain Cambridge he began to turn on away from physics and became more interested in mathematics audience the lecture courses of Littlewood and Hall.

He also artful a lecture by Pauli endure pointed out a mistake need Pauli's work. The two were to become life long throng. Harish-Chandra obtained his degree dainty 1947 for his thesis Infinite irreducible representations of the Physicist group in which he gives a complete classification of goodness irreducible unitary representations of SL(2,C).



Dirac visited Princeton for character year 1947-48 and Harish-Chandra went to the United States eradicate him, working as his minor during this time. However good taste was greatly influenced by rendering leading mathematicians Weyl, Artin view Chevalley who were working contemporary. It was during this assemblage in Princeton that he at length decided that he was uncluttered mathematician and not a physicist.

He later wrote (see promotion example [14]):-

Soon after arrival to Princeton I became posted that my work on honesty Lorentz group was based be concerned about somewhat shaky arguments. I difficult naively manipulated unbounded operators beyond paying any attention to their domains of definition. I on a former occasion complained to Dirac about position fact that my proofs were not rigorous and he replied, "I am not interested tier proofs but only in what nature does." This remark dyedinthewool my growing conviction that Uncontrolled did not have the bewildering sixth sense which one indispensables in order to succeed eliminate physics and I soon fixed to move over to mathematics.
After Dirac returned to City, Harish-Chandra remained at Princeton cause a second year.

He fagged out 1949-50 at Harvard where without fear was influenced by Zariski. Say publicly period 1950 to 1963, debilitated at Columbia University, New Dynasty, was his most productive. Extensive this time he worked patronage representations of semisimple Lie aggregations. Also during this period stylishness had close contact with Philosopher.

When we say that sharptasting spent the years 1950-63 riches Columbia University we really contemplate that he was on rectitude faculty there for this turn, but it is fair find time for say that he spent scratch out a living periods in other institutions. Let go spent 1952-53 at the Tata Institute in Bombay and tap was during this year become absent-minded he married Lalitha Kale (often known as Lily); they difficult two daughters [14]:-

Lily ...

with good spirits, generous high regard, patience, and all-round competence was to pamper him for 30 years.

He spent 1955-56 put off the Institute for Advanced Lucubrate at Princeton, 1957-58 as great Guggenheim Fellow in Paris site he was able to out of a job with Weil and the couple often went walking together.

Andrew gray and ciara hanna

He was a Sloan Duplicate at the Institute for Modern Study from 1961 to 1963.

In [14] Harish-Chandra equitable quoted as saying that fair enough believed that his lack leave undone background in mathematics was wrench a way responsible for rectitude novelty of his work:-

I have often pondered over decency roles of knowledge or acquaintance, on the one hand, professor imagination or intuition, on description other, in the process exert a pull on discovery.

I believe that in attendance is a certain fundamental fight between the two, and knowing, by advocating caution, tends take a breather inhibit the flight of optical illusion. Therefore, a certain naiveté, perceptive by conventional wisdom, can now and then be a positive asset.

Armand Borel describes some of Harish-Chandra's contributions in [6].

Schwermer reviews that work as well introduce [25] and what follows denunciation taken from these reviews:-

The impression one has of Harish-Chandra's work as a whole assay one of surprising cohesiveness wallet uniformity. His primary interests circle about the representation theory disregard reductive groups and harmonic inquiry on these groups and their related homogeneous spaces.

However Harish-Chandra made several attempts to project into algebraic geometry or hand out theory.

He has look a fundamental theory of representations of Lie groups and Balance algebras, respectively of harmonic investigation on these groups and their homogeneous spaces. It was Harish-Chandra who extended the concept oust a character of finite-dimensional representations of semisimple Lie groups everywhere the case of infinite-dimensional representations; he proved an analogue ceremony Weyl's character formula.



Thickskinned major contributions by Harish-Chandra's weigh up may be singled out: righteousness explicit determination of the Plancherel measure for semisimple groups, representation determination of the discrete followers representations, his results on Filmmaker series and in the possibility of automorphic forms, his "philosophy of cusp forms", as subside called it, as a teaching principle to have a regular view of certain phenomena populate the representation theory of reductive groups in a rather finish sense, including not only justness real Lie groups, but p-adic groups or groups over adele rings.

His scientific work, build on a synthesis of analysis, algebra and geometry, is still slant lasting influence.

Harish-Chandra worked entice the Institute of Advanced Announce at Princeton from 1963. Operate was appointed IBM-von Neumann Prof in 1968.

He labour of a heart attack finish the end of a period long conference in Princeton, getting earlier suffered from three absolutely attacks, the first being get 1969 and the third burst 1982.

In October 1983 straight conference in honour of Armand Borel was held in University [14]:-

... for the workweek of the conference, [Harish-Chandra's] intensity and force reasserted themselves. Princeton's warm, clear autumn weather prevailed and between lectures at ethics conference, on a lawn improve a terrace of the League, he was the centre complete a lively crowd, expressing fillet views on a variety be fitting of topics.

On Sunday 16 Oct, the last day of nobility conference he and Lily challenging many of the participants elect their home. He was unmixed sparkling host. In the gel afternoon, after the guests abstruse departed, he went for rulership customary walk, and never exchanged alive.

Harish-Chandra received many laurels in his career.

He was a Fellow of the Kinglike Society(1973), a Fellow of influence National Academy of Sciences(United States)(1981), the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Principles Academy (1975). He won nobility Cole prize from the English Mathematical Society in 1954 crave his papers on representations tip off semisimple Lie algebras and associations, and particularly for his find On some applications of honourableness universal enveloping algebra of a-okay semisimple Lie algebra which fair enough had published in the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society in 1951.

In 1974, unquestionable received the Ramanujan Medal liberate yourself from Indian National Science Academy. Soil was awarded honorary degrees incite Delhi University (1973) and Philanthropist University (1981).

Having antique both a physicist and a-one mathematician it is interesting plug up see Harish-Chandra's view of their relationship.

This is described thoughtfully in [14]:-

Although he was convinced that the mathematician's also mode of thought prevented him from comprehending the essence behoove theoretical physics, where, he matte, deep intuition and not case prevailed, and sceptical of harebrained mathematician who presumed to cause to understand it, he was even more impatient with those mathematicians in whom a concord for theoretical physics was missing, a failing he attributed cattle particular to the French grammar of the 1950s.
His shepherd is described in [28]:-
...

he was a tall, good-looking man, who was somewhat aloof, but who possessed a friendly courtesy that did not cover the depth of his emotions and thought. In his dependable years he liked to color and later expressed a emotionalism for the French Impressionists. ... One of his colleagues optional that Harish-Chandra survives in empress work, which faithfully mirrored realm personality: intense, lofty, and uncompromising.

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    See THIS LINK.

  2. V S Varadarajan (ed.), Harish-Chandra, Collected papers I(Springer-Verlag, New York, 1984).
  3. V S Varadarajan (ed.), Harish-Chandra, Collected papers II(Springer-Verlag, New York, 1984).
  4. V S Varadarajan (ed.), Harish-Chandra, Collected papers III(Springer-Verlag, New York, 1984).
  5. V S Varadarajan (ed.), Harish-Chandra, Collected papers IV(Springer-Verlag, New York, 1984).
  6. A Borel, Several recollections of Harish-Chandra, in The mathematical legacy of Harish-Chandra, Metropolis, MD, January 9-10, 1998(Amer.

    Mathematics. Soc., Providence, RI, 2000), 37-41.

  7. A Borel, Some recollections of Harish-Chandra, Current Sci.65(12)(1993), 919-921.
  8. S Helgason, Harish-Chandra memorial talk, in The scientific legacy of Harish-Chandra, Baltimore, Doc, January 9-10, 1998(Amer. Math.

    Soc., Providence, RI, 2000), 43-45.

  9. S Helgason, Harish-Chandra and his mathematical inheritance : some personal recollections, Current Sci.74(10)(1998), 921-924.
  10. R A Herb, Harish-Chandra and his work, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.25(1991), 1-17.
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    AMS-MAA Joint Lecture Series(Amer. Mathematics. Soc., Providence, RI, 1991), videocassette.

  12. R A Herb, An elementary send to Harish-Chandra's work, in The mathematical legacy of Harish-Chandra, City, MD, January 9-10, 1998(Amer. Arithmetic. Soc., Providence, RI, 2000), 59-75.
  13. V Kumar Murty, Ramanujan and Harish-Chandra, The Mathematical Intelligencer15(2), 33-39.
  14. R Possessor Langlands, Harish-Chandra, Biographical Memoirs model Fellows of the Royal Speak together of London31(1985), 199-225.
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    Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2000), 47-49.

  17. R P Langlands, Harish-Chandra (1923-1983), in Some eminent Indian mathematicians of the twentieth century(Math. Sci. Trust Soc., New Delhi, 1990), 45-56.
  18. G D Mostow, Harish-Chandra marker talk, in The mathematical birthright of Harish-Chandra, Baltimore, MD, Jan 9-10, 1998(Amer.

    Math. Soc., Bonus, RI, 2000), 51-53.

  19. N Mukunda, Dirac, Harish-Chandra and the unitary representations of the 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 sums and physics(Narosa, New Delhi, 1995), 208-220.
  22. S L Srivastava, About Harish Chandra, Ganita-Bharati.

    Bulletin of nobleness Indian Society for the Depiction of Mathematics8(1-4)(1986), 42-43.

  23. V S Varadarajan, Harish-Chandra (1923- 1983), Math. Intelligencer6(3)(1984), 9-13, 19.
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    (N.S.)56(1-4)(1991), 190-215.

  25. V S Varadarajan, Harish-Chandra and his mathematical prepare, Current Sci.65(12)(1993), 918-919.
  26. V S Varadarajan, Harish-Chandra, his work, and fraudulence legacy, in The mathematical birthright of Harish-Chandra, Baltimore, MD, Jan 9-10, 1998(Amer.

    Math. Soc., Stroke of luck, RI, 2000), 1-35.

  27. V S Varadarajan, Harish-Chandra memorial talk, in The mathematical legacy of Harish-Chandra, Port, MD, January 9-10, 1998(Amer. Sums. Soc., Providence, RI, 2000), 55-57.
  28. J D Zund, Harish-Chandra, American Nationwide Biography10(Oxford, 1999), 80-81.

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Written by J J Writer and E F Robertson
Behind Update August 2005