# nLab Michael Atiyah

Sir Michael Atiyah was a British-Lebanese mathematician, a Fields’ medalist, and Abel prize winner (with Isadore Singer). He was professor of mathematics at Edinburgh University.

## Some publications

• Michael Atiyah, Characters and cohomology of finite groups, Publications Mathématiques de l’IHÉS, Volume 9 (1961) , p. 23-64 (numdam)
• Michael Atiyah, Graeme Segal, Equivariant $K$-theory and completion, J. Differential Geom. Volume 3, Number 1-2 (1969), 1-18. (Euclid)

On skyrmions:

On patterns in the characteristic classes (Chern classes) of complex surfaces, together with some speculations about an anlogy with atomic number of atomic nuclei:

## Selected quotes

The aim of theory really is, to a great extent, that of systematically organizing past experience in such a way that the next generation, our students and their students and so on, will be able to absorb the essential aspects in as painless a way as possible, and this is the only way in which you can go on cumulatively building up any kind of scientific activity without eventually coming to a dead end.

(M.F. Atiyah, “How research is carried out”, Bull. IMA., 10:232–234, 1974)

category: people

Last revised on June 25, 2019 at 08:18:23. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.