Sir Micchael Atiyah giving a lecture on monopolies.
michael atiyah, born 1929
Distinguished mathematician
Sir Michael Atiyah OM was the dominant figure in UK mathematics in the latter half of the twentieth century. He made outstanding contributions to geometry, topology, global analysis and, particularly over the last 30 years, to theoretical physics. Not only was he held in high esteem at a worldwide level, winning a Fields Medal in 1966, the Abel Prize in 2004 and innumerable other international awards, but his irrepressible energy and broad interests led him to take on many national roles too, including the presidency of the Royal Society, the mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the founding directorship of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences. His most notable mathematical achievement, with Isadore Singer, is the index theorem, which occupied him for over 20 years, generating results in topology, geometry and number theory using the analysis of elliptic differential operators.
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Source: Archived in December 2020, with acknowledgement and thanks, from the website of the Royal Society. This biography was written by Nigel Hitchin.