Raoul Bott
Harvard University
September 24, 1923 - December 20, 2005
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Scientific Discipline: Mathematics Membership Type:
Member
(elected 1964)
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Considered one of the outstanding geometers of his time, Raoul Bott was especially attracted to topology. The application of topology to the study of critical points of functions, as well as topology’s extension to the calculus of variations, remained dominating themes throughout his career. In particular, Bott’s most important work for many years centered on the application of Morse theory to the topology of Lie groups and their homogeneous spaces. He also made substantial contributions to periodicity theory; for example, his 1957 paper “The stable homotopy of classical groups” was, in the words of colleague Sir Michael Atiyah, “a bombshell. The results were beautiful, far-reaching, and totally unexpected.” Bott did eminent work in index theory and equivariant cohomology as well. Meanwhile, during much of his career, he supported and participated in interactions between mathematicians and theoretical physicists.
Born in Hungary, Bott grew up in Slovakia, England, and Canada. He earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from McGill University (Montreal) in 1945 and went on to study mathematics at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, from which he received his PhD in 1949. Over the next decade he held a faculty appointment at the University of Michigan, punctuated by sabbaticals at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. In no small part because of the reputation established by his 1957 paper, Bott moved to Harvard University in 1960, where he remained for the rest of his career.
Drawn to him by his friendly informal manner as well as his obvious passion for elegant mathematics, Bott attracted a large number of talented students during his many years at Harvard. Two of them went on to win Fields medals, a Nobel laureate in economics attributed his success to Bott’s teaching, and many other former students enjoyed distinguished academic careers. Bott himself received numerous honors and awards, including the Wolf Prize in Mathematics (2000) and the U.S. National Medal of Science (1987).
