Richard Borcherds

Richard Ewen Borcherds ( born November 29, 1959 in Cape Town, South Africa) is an English mathematician who works in the fields of group theory, number theory and geometry, specifically on grid and infinite-dimensional algebras ( Kac -Moody algebras, Vertexalgebren ).

Life and work

He grew up in Birmingham, won in 1978 a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad, studied at Cambridge with John Horton Conway (Ph.D. 1985 on the Leech lattice ) and went to the University of Berkeley in California later. In his youth he was one of the leading chess players of England, but then turned entirely to mathematics.

He developed with Igor Frenkel, James Lepowsky and Arne Meurman the theory of Vertexalgebren, special infinite-dimensional graded algebras which are used for example in string theory. In particular, he found a vertex algebra on which the largest finite simple sporadic group, the Monster Group operates, and could so the " moonshine " presumptions of John McKay, John Horton Conway and Simon Norton about the appearance of the degrees of the irreducible representations of the monster in the prove Fourier coefficients of the elliptic modular function ( function).

Later he dealt among other things with the mathematical foundations of quantum field theory.

For his work to prove the " monstrous moonshine " properties he received at the 1998 ICM in Berlin, the Fields Medal. In 1992 he was awarded the EMS price. He is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

Compared to the Guardian newspaper commented Borcherds the presumption that he had Asperger's syndrome. The British psychologist Simon Baron -Cohen introduced after detailed investigations, the diagnosis and reported it in the chapter " A math professor " in his book From the first day is different.