Andrew Casson

Andrew J. Casson ( born 1943 ) is a British mathematician who deals with geometric topology.

Life

Casson studied at the University of Liverpool in CTC Wall and then went to the University of Cambridge, where he became a Fellow of Trinity College. After that, he was a professor at Cambridge, from 1981 to 1986 at the University of Texas at Austin, 1986-1999 at the University of California, Berkeley, and since 2000 at Yale University, where he was from 2004 to 2007 chairman of the mathematics department.

To 1967, he and Dennis Sullivan refuted the " main conjecture " about the unique Triangulierbarkeit topological manifolds ( set up by Ernst Steinitz and Heinrich Tietze, 1908), which claimed the unique Triangulierbarkeit triangulable of topological manifolds. They found an obstruction in higher ( five or more ) dimensions (first counter-examples found in dimension 8 John Milnor 1961). For up to three dimensions, however, it is correct ( Edward Brown 1963). Cassons work was originally intended to be his dissertation at Wall in Liverpool, he handed it then but as a qualification for the Fellowship of Trinity College on ( he never formally received his doctorate ).

According to him, the integer Casson invariants for 3-manifolds and Casson handle ( Casson handles) are called topological 4 -manifolds in the theory. Casson handles are 2- handles in 4 dimensions, they were used by Michael Freedman in his fundamental work on the classification simply related topological 4 -manifolds from 1982 and comes from him the name.

Casson is a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1991 he was awarded the Oswald Veblen Prize -. In 1986 he was invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berkeley ( A survey of recent developments in 3- dimensional topology ) and 1978 in Helsinki ( Knot cobordism ).

Writings

• "The main conjecture book " pdf file, with the dissertation of Casson 1967 for the Fellowship of Trinity College (1.46 MB)