Mathematician:Edward Witten

Mathematician

American theoretical physicist and professor of mathematical physics.

Researcher in string theory, quantum gravity, supersymmetric quantum field theories, and other areas of mathematical physics.

Fields Medal

Edward Witten was awarded a Fields Medal in $\text {1990}$ at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Kyoto, Japan:

Time and again he has surprised the mathematical community by a brilliant application of physical insight leading to new and deep mathematical theorems.

Nationality

American

History

• Born: August 26, 1951 in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
• 1990: Awarded a Fields Medal for his $1981$ proof of the Positive Energy Theorem in general relativity

Theorems and Definitions

• Seiberg-Witten Theory (with Nathan Seiberg)
• Seiberg-Witten Invariant (with Nathan Seiberg)

• Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten Model (with Julius Erich Wess, Bruno Zumino and Sergei Petrovich Novikov) (also known as Wess-Zumino-Witten Model or WZW Model)

• Weinberg-Witten Theorem (with Steven Weinberg)
• Gromov-Witten Invariant (with Mikhael Leonidovich Gromov}
• Hořava-Witten Domain Wall (with Petr Hořava)
• Vafa-Witten Theorem (with Cumrun Vafa)
• Witten Index
• BCFW Recursion (with Ruth Britto, Freddy Alexander Cachazo and Bo Feng)
• Witten-Type TQFT
• CSW Rules (with Freddy Alexander Cachazo and Peter Svrcek)
• Witten Conjecture
• Hanany-Witten Transition (with Amihay Hanany)

Publications

• 1976: Some Problems in the Short Distance Analysis of Gauge Theories

• 1982: Super-symmetry and Morse Theory (J. Differ. Geom. Vol. 17, no. 4: pp. 661 – 692)

• 1985: Current Algebra and Anomalies: A Set of Lecture Notes and Papers (with Roman Jackiw, David Gross, Sam B. Treiman and Bruno Zumino)

• 1988: Topological quantum field theory (Commun. Math. Phys. Vol. 117, no. 3: pp. 353 – 386)

• 1988: Topological sigma models (Commun. Math. Phys. Vol. 118, no. 3: pp. 411 – 449)

• 1988: Superstring Theory. Vol. 1, Introduction (with M. Green and John H. Schwarz)

• 1988: Superstring Theory. Vol. 2, Loop Amplitudes, Anomalies and Phenomenology (with M. Green and John H. Schwarz)

Sources

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "Edward Witten": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive

• 2014: Christopher Clapham and James Nicholson: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (5th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Witten, Edward (1957-  )

note the erroneous year of birth

• 2021: Richard Earl and James Nicholson: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (6th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Witten, Edward (1951-  )