Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry (1971) NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing (1995)
Scientific career
Fields
Mathematics
Institutions
University of California, Berkeley
Thesis
Smoothing Locally Flat Imbeddings(1965)
Doctoral advisor
Eldon Dyer [de]
Doctoral students
Selman Akbulut
Stephen Bigelow
Tim Cochran
David Gauld
Robert Gompf
Elisenda Grigsby
Tomasz Mrowka
Yongbin Ruan
Martin Scharlemann
Rob Schneiderman (mathematician)
Michael Handel
Robion Cromwell Kirby (born February 25, 1938) is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley who specializes in low-dimensional topology. Together with Laurent C. Siebenmann he developed the Kirby–Siebenmann invariant for classifying the piecewise linear structures on a topological manifold. He also proved the fundamental result on the Kirby calculus, a method for describing 3-manifolds and smooth 4-manifolds by surgery on framed links. Along with his significant mathematical contributions, he has over 50 doctoral students and is the editor of an influential problem list.[1]
He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1965, with thesis "Smoothing Locally Flat Imbeddings" written under the direction of Eldon Dyer [de].[2] He soon became an assistant professor at UCLA. While there he developed his "torus trick" which enabled him to solve, in dimensions greater than four (with additional joint work with Siebenmann), four of John Milnor's seven most important problems in geometric topology.[3]
In 1971, he was awarded the Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry by the American Mathematical Society.
In 1995 he became the first mathematician to receive the NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing from the National Academy of Sciences for his problem list in low-dimensional topology.[4] He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2001. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.[5]
Kirby is also the President of Mathematical Sciences Publishers, a small non-profit academic publishing house that focuses on mathematics and engineering journals.
^Kirby, Rob, ed. (December 22, 1995), Problems in Low-Dimensional Topology(PDF), retrieved October 8, 2023
^Robion Kirby at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
^Ferry, Steve. Lecture notes in geometric topology(PDF).
^"NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing". National Academy of Sciences. Archived from the original on 18 March 2011. Retrieved 27 February 2011.
^List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society, retrieved 2013-01-27.
Robion Cromwell Kirby (born February 25, 1938) is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley who specializes in low-dimensional...
In mathematics, the Kirby calculus in geometric topology, named after RobionKirby, is a method for modifying framed links in the 3-sphere using a finite...
are much harder in the topological category, requiring the theory of RobionKirby and Laurent C. Siebenmann. The restriction to manifolds of dimension...
work on the 4-dimensional generalized Poincaré conjecture. Freedman and RobionKirby showed that an exotic R4 manifold exists. Freedman was born in Los Angeles...
California, Berkeley in 1988 under the direction of Clifford Taubes and RobionKirby. He joined the MIT mathematics faculty as professor in 1996, following...
dimension 4 by Quinn (1982), and in dimensions at least 5 by Kirby (1969). RobionKirby's torus trick is a proof method employing an immersion of a punctured...
and by Edwin E. Moise in dimension 3. By using obstruction theory, RobionKirby and Laurent C. Siebenmann were able to show that the number of PL structures...
Raoul Bott 1966 Stephen Smale 1966 Morton Brown and Barry Mazur 1971 RobionKirby 1971 Dennis Sullivan 1976 William Thurston 1976 James Harris Simons 1981...
from the University of California, Berkeley under the supervision of RobionKirby (An invariant for Casson handles, disks and knot concordants). He is...
version of the triangulation obstruction of RobionKirby and Laurent C. Siebenmann, obtained in 1970. The Kirby–Siebenmann obstruction is defined for any...
list of characters from the Kirby franchise, who are featured in video games and other media across the franchise. Kirby (カービィ, Kābī) is the protagonist...
University of California, Berkeley, in 1975 under the supervision of RobionKirby. From 1975 to 1978, he was an instructor at Princeton University. He...
University of California, Berkeley in 1981 under the supervision of RobionKirby. He joined the Davis faculty in 1988. In 2012 he became a fellow of the...
D. from the University of California, Berkeley under the guidance of RobionKirby in 1974. A conference in his honor was held in 2009 at the University...
Raoul Bott 1966 Stephen Smale 1966 Morton Brown and Barry Mazur 1971 RobionKirby 1971 Dennis Sullivan 1976 William Thurston 1976 James Harris Simons 1981...
University of St Andrews Weisstein, Eric W. "Smale's Problems". MathWorld. RobionKirby, Stephen Smale: The Mathematician Who Broke the Dimension Barrier, a...
His father, Bernard C. Kirby, was a sociology professor at San Diego State University (1954–1975), and his brother RobionKirby, is a professor of mathematics...
his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley as a student of RobionKirby. In topology, he has worked on handlebody theory, low-dimensional manifolds...
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