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Gerd Faltings, Emeritus Direktor des Max-Planck-Instituts für Mathematik in Bonn, wurde zum Mitglied des Orden pour le mérite gewählt, wie am 11.9.2024 durch das Bundespresseamt bekannt gegeben wurde. Dem Orden gehören somit 34 deutsche und 37 ausländische Mitglieder, darunter 17 Nobelpreisträgerinnen und -träger, an. Zu Mitgliedern des Ordens zählten mit Friedrich Hirzebruch und Yuri Manin bereits zwei weitere Direktoren des Max-Planck-Instituts für Mathematik.

Die Zuwahl in den Orden Pour le mérite zählt zu den höchsten Ehrungen, die Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftlern, Künstlerinnen und Künstlern in Deutschland zuteilwerden kann. Die Künstler- und Gelehrtenvereinigung wurde 1842 von Preußenkönig Friedrich Wilhelm IV. gegründet und 1952 von Bundespräsident Theodor Heuss wiederbelebt. Erster Kanzler des Ordens war der Naturforscher Alexander von Humboldt.

Der Orden Pour le mérite steht unter dem Protektorat des Bundespräsidenten. Finanziert und organisatorisch betreut wird er von der Staatsministerin für Kultur und Medien.

Gerd Faltings wurde in Gelsenkirchen Buer als Sohn eines Diplomphysikers und einer Diplomchemikerin geboren. In seiner Schulzeit nahm er zweimal am Bundeswettbewerb Mathematik des Stifterverbandes teil und wurde als Bundessieger in die Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes aufgenommen. Nach dem Abitur studierte er Mathematik und Physik an der Universität Münster. 1978/79 war er zu Gast an der Harvard Universität in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Wieder zurück in Münster wurde er 1979 Assistent von Professor Nastold und habilitierte sich 1981. Als Professor in Wuppertal hatte er große Erfolge und wechselte Anfang 1985 als full professor an die Princeton University in New Jersey, USA.

Zu seinen ersten Auszeichnungen zählten der Danny Heinemann Preis der Akademie in Göttingen 1984 und 1986 in Berkeley die Fields Medaille, eine Auszeichnung, welche die International Mathematical Union nur alle vier Jahre auf ihrem Kongress an junge Mathematiker*innen unter 40 Jahren verleiht. Als seine Töchter älter wurden, kehrte er nach Deutschland zurück und war von 1994 bis zu seiner Emeritierung 2023 wissenschaftliches Mitglied der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft am Max-Planck-Institut für Mathematik in Bonn.

Mathematisch begann er seine Forschung auf dem Gebiet der kommutativen Algebra, der Spezialität seines Lehrers Nastold. Auch vermittelte Nastold den Kontakt zu Professor L. Szpiro in Paris, welcher Ideen zur Mordell Vermutung hatte. Faltings fand dies sehr interessant und arbeitete darüber in der Hoffnung, irgendein nützliches Teilresultat zu erzielen. Zu seiner Überraschung konnte er 1983 die Vermutung in seinem Artikel Endlichkeitssätze für abelsche Varietäten über Zahlkörpern (Faltings‘ Satz) beweisen und wurde über Nacht zum Star. In der Folge bearbeitete er Kompaktifizierungen von Modulräumen und p-adische Hodge-Theorie. Beide Gebiete spielten bei der Mordell-Vermutung eine wichtige Rolle und wurden zunächst mit adhoc-Konstruktionen behandelt, welche er dann durch eine systematischere Theorie ersetzte. Als nächstes spülte ihm das Schicksal eine Arbeit von P. Vojta über diophantische Approximation vor die Füße, welche er stark verallgemeinern konnte. Schließlich hörte er am IAS eine Vorlesung von E. Witten. Die Vorlesung enthielt interessante Aussagen zu Modulräumen von Bündeln, und auf diesem Gebiet konnte er eine ganze Reihe von mathematischen Resultaten erzielen.

Gerd Faltings ist Mitglied der Akademien in Düsseldorf, Göttingen, Berlin und Halle, in der European Academy, in der Royal Society (London) und in der National Academy of Science (Washington). In Deutschland erhielt er 1996 den Leibniz-Preis, 2008 den von Staudt-Preis, 2010 den Heinz Gumin Preis und 2017 die Georg-Cantor-Medaille. Internationale Preise waren 2014 der King Faisal International Preis und 2015 der Shaw Prize.

The Max Planck Institute for Mathematics mourns the death of its postdoctoral fellow

Tobias Kreutz ( * 04.08.1996 - † 08.08.2024).

He completed his PhD in 2022 at the Humboldt University Berlin under the guidance of Bruno Klingler and Laurent Fargues. Since then he has been a visitor at the institute. Tobias has been working at the interface of complex and $p$-adic Hodge theory, with particular focus on the transcendental periods arising in both settings. In his last paper, he has proposed obstructions to complex Hodge structures being of geometric origin. He was a cherished member of our community and will be greatly missed by his friends and colleagues.

Peter Scholze, director at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics and professor at the University of Bonn, was awarded the Pius XI Gold Medal 2020 by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The medal is awarded every two years to a young scientist under the age of 45, chosen for his or her exceptional promise. After Luis A. Caffarelli (1988), Laure Saint-Raymond (2004), and Cédric Villani (2014), Peter Scholze is only the fourth mathematician to receive this honor.

Peter Scholze was born in 1987. Studies of Mathematics at the University of Bonn, Master 2010, PhD 2012. Clay Research Fellow 2011-2016. Chancellor's Professor, UC Berkeley, Fall 2014. Hausdorff Chair, University of Bonn, since October 2012. Scientific Member and Director, MPI for Mathematics, since July 2018. Awards (selection): 2014 Clay Research Award, 2015 Ostrowski Prize, 2016 Leibniz Prize of the DFG, 2018 Fields Medal, 2019 Great Cross of Merit of Germany, 2022 Foreign Member of the Royal Society.

The Pontifical Academy of Sciences is the only supranational academy of sciences in the world. Founded in Rome in 1603 as the first exclusively scientific academy in the world with the name Linceorum Academia, to which Galileo Galilei was appointed member in 1610, it was reestablished in 1847 by Pius IX with the name Pontificia Accademia dei Nuovi Lincei. It was moved to its current headquarters in the Vatican Gardens in 1922, and given its current name and statutes by Pius XI in 1936. Its mission is to honor pure science wherever it may be found, ensure its freedom, and encourage research for the progress of science. Its 80 Pontifical Academicians are appointed for life by the Holy Father following proposals by the academic body and chosen without any form of ethnic or religious discrimination from the most eminent scientists and scholars of the mathematical and experimental sciences of every country of the world.

(Source: The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Photo credit: Barbara Frommann)

Peter Scholze, director at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics and professor at the University of Bonn, was elected Foreign Member of the Royal Society.

Official announcement of the Royal Society

Peter Scholze was born in 1987. Studies of Mathematics at the University of Bonn, Master 2010, PhD 2012. Clay Research Fellow 2011-2016. Chancellor's Professor, UC Berkeley, Fall 2014. Hausdorff Chair, University of Bonn, since October 2012. Scientific Member and Director, MPI for Mathematics, since July 2018. Awards (selection): 2014 Clay Research Award, 2015 Ostrowski Prize, 2016 Leibniz Prize of the DFG, 2018 Fields Medal, 2019 Great Cross of Merit of Germany.

The Royal Society, founded in 1660 by King Charles II, is the oldest scientific institution of its kind in the world. The Society’s fundamental purpose is to recognise, promote, and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity. The Society has played a part in some of the most fundamental, significant, and life-changing discoveries in scientific history and Royal Society scientists continue to make outstanding contributions to science in many research areas.

(Source: The Royal Society)

The Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award 2021 is awarded jointly to Don Zagier and Benedict Gross for "their formulation and proof of the Gross-Zagier formula, which relates the height of Heegner points with the central derivatives of the zeta function of the corresponding elliptic curves. They established striking cases of the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture, which brought many applications to long-standing problems, and deeply influenced the development of number theory in recent decades." The prize committee also recognized Don Zagier's "profound work on modular forms and special functions which resolve questions and problems in diverse areas ranging from topology and moduli spaces to geometry and mathematical physics."

The Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award was jointly founded in 2015 by Fudan University and Zhongzhi Enterprise Group, in recognition of scientists who have made fundamental and groundbreaking achievements in physics, mathematics, and biomedicine. The Award aims to promote global scientific research, and advance science and technology, providing an international platform for research communication, discussion and sharing. The 2021 Award is the second given in the field of mathematics. The laureates share RMB 3 million (around USD 450,000) donated by Zhongzhi Enterprise Group. The prize ceremony will be held on 19 December 2021 in Shanghai.

Don Zagier is an emeritus director at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn: Born 1951. Studies of mathematics and physics, M.I.T. 1966-1968. D.Phil., Oxford University 1971. Habilitation, University of Bonn 1975. Member of academic staff, SFB Theoretische Mathematik, University of Bonn 1971-1984. Professor, University of Bonn since 1976. Chair Professor of Number Theory, University of Maryland 1979-1990. Professor, Kyushu University (Fukuoka, Japan) 1990-1991 and 1992-1993. Professor, University of Utrecht 1990-2001. Scientific Member, MPI for Mathematics since 1984. Director, MPI for Mathematics 1995-2019. Professor, Collège de France (Paris) 2000-2014. Distinguished Staff Associate, ICTP, Trieste since 2014. Carus Prize 1984. Frank Nelson Cole Prize 1987. Karl Georg Christian von Staudt Prize 2001. Member of the National Academy of Sciences 2017. Honorary member of the London Mathematical Society since 2019.

Link to the official prize announcement

Recordings of the prize ceremony (including Professor Gross's acceptance speech and Professor Zagier's popular lecture "The Old and Beautiful Theory of Numbers"): https://archive.mpim-bonn.mpg.de/id/eprint/4688/

Dennis Gaitsgory is a newly appointed director at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn. He will join the three active directors Gerd Faltings, Peter Teichner, and Peter Scholze in July 2021.

Dennis Gaitsgory was Born in 1973 in Moldava, a republic of the Soviet Union at the time. He studied at Tel Aviv University under Joseph Bernstein from 1990–1996, where he received his doctorate in 1997 for a thesis on "Automorphic Sheaves and Eisenstein Series". In the academic years 1996/97 and 1998/99 he was at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 2001 he became Associate Professor at the University of Chicago before joining the faculty of Harvard University in 2005.

Dennis Gaitsgory has made important contributions to the geometric Langlands program. For his work he has been awarded a Harvard Junior Fellowship, the prize of the European Mathematical Society, and a Clay Research Fellowship. In 2002 he was invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing. In 2020 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

(Photo credit: MFO)

Gaëtan Borot studied at the ENS Paris and finished his PhD with Bertrand Eynard in theoretical physics at CEA Saclay in 2011. After two years as postdoc in Geneva and a visit of MIT, he joined the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in 2014 as Advanced Researcher (W2). In the Fall of 2020 he has moved to a chair at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He is working on the combinatorial and algebraic structures of quantum field theory and is best known for his contributions to topological recursion for which he has received the Dubrovin Medal of 2020. Christian Blohmann had a conversation with him about his new position and his time in Bonn.

Blohmann: How is your new job?

Borot: Very different. I realize how much I was taken care of at MPIM in terms of all that is external to research, and had time to really devote myself to science. This is not critical of my university, which is a big machine, a big factory, in which the math department is just one droplet. The organization cannot be the same. Every little thing for the office I had to find out how to get it according to the rules, which have their own reason to be. The people I’ve met here are nice but because of Corona, its like starting to work in the underground and wait for the days when we are able to go outside. The department of mathematics is not big, but there are interesting people to talk to, and so I’m looking forward to when I will be settled in and when Corona will be over so that we can start to have a scientific life again.

Blohmann: Do you already have a new group in Berlin?

Borot: I am in the process of building it. On my homepage I have also included the PhD students and postdocs who are still in Bonn. One of them is moving to Berlin soon. I have a new PhD student from Italy and one postdoc who is not yet living in Berlin for Corona reasons. And I am planning to hire two more postdocs this year with my startup funds. So I’m slowly trying to redo what I had at MPIM. Maybe within 2 or 3 years I will have a group of 4 or 5 people around, but then it has to be sustained by external funding.

Blohmann: Was it hard to get a good job? How was your application process?

Borot: In general, finding a job in Germany is not easy and there’s also the special situation that I do pure mathematics but have a PhD in theoretical physics. For some people I’m still considered as a physicist but in front of physicists it’s hard to defend that I do theoretical physics. In my head I don’t make this separation, but the university structure and the job market are more categorized. Since my PhD I have always been in the math department. I’m really inside mathematics with the things I do and questions I ask. But sometimes I still see some resistance, which comes from the dichotomy between physics and mathematics.

Blohmann: Can you tell us how you got to MPIM?

Borot: My first position after the PhD was in Geneva. I had just finished writing my thesis day and night for three months and was eager to meet new people and learn new things. So I went to a conference on knot theory, where I met Don [Zagier]. He told me many things about knots, his ideas on the Jones polynomial, the Bloch group, and introduced me to Tudor Dimofte who told me about quantization of Chern-Simons. I saw some similarities to topological recursion, but at that time it was too fuzzy. So I worked through “The 1-2-3 of Modular Forms” Don had told me about. A few months later I found a connection which explained some calculations of theoretical physicists on perturbative knot invariants, so I had something concrete to show to him. A year later, when I was already set to move to Boston for my next postdoc at MIT, I received a call from Don who told me about a five-year position at MPIM. I had been to MPIM for short visits but knew nothing about the German system and W2 positions. So I applied and five days later, just when I was about to fly to Boston, Don called me and told me that I got the position. I felt extremely lucky because I didn’t have to look for the position, it just came to me. When I arrived at the Max Planck Institute, I was totally free and I didn’t have to worry about what to do next. I really had the space just to try something interesting. I also came with this feeling that I have to pay back the trust that the people put in me by doing something that’s worth in mathematics.

Blohmann: That sounds like a classic story about Don getting math talent to MPIM. In some sense, this is the ideal Max Planck Society style recruiting. Now that your time at MPI is over, did you realize the goals you had when you started?

Borot: I usually start with modest goals, first try things that one can actually do, which are still interesting. When I came to the MPIM, there were several things I wanted to understand, but I didn’t have the faith that I’m going to solve that. I just wanted to learn and, in the process, maybe find something where I can say something which is not totally trivial. What I really benefited from in Bonn were the talks. I didn’t go to many talks at the MPIM because I needed time locked in my office to work. But the talks I went to, maybe once in a month, a bit more when there was a conference, were extremely helpful and that happened without me wanting it consciously. Just by diffusion I learned a lot of geometry, about algebraic geometry, in the talks from the group of Peter Teichner about factorization algebras, about higher categories in quantum field theory, or got better acquaintance in topological strings by discussing with Albrecht Klemm at Bonn University. There was this little sheet of paper in front of my office with my category number (the level of your category that you can think about without having a headache). When I arrived in Bonn, it was perhaps 1, after a year in it was 2, and after 5 years in Bonn I was not far from infinity.

Blohmann: Infinity is the next simple number after 2. Nobody ever says, you know, 37.

Borot: Exactly (laughs)! That’s something that happened just by going to talks from time to time discussing with people. When I arrived at Bonn, topological recursion was not geometric in the sense that it produced out of some data an object that depends on two integers g and n, that were in applications often related to the genus of a surface and the number of punctures or boundary components, but it was not clear why. So when I discussed from time to time with Peter Teichner and other people, they were always asking “Why is g the genus?” and “Why is n related to the number of boundaries?” When I arrived in Bonn this was not known. Topological recursion was just in the process of being cast in a purely mathematical framework. So, what I found, with Jørgen Andersen and Nicolas Orantin, is a way to obtain topological recursion from a geometric construction that is finer than topological recursion. And this can be used in practice. The assumptions are not too hard to check. When I did that, for what it’s worth, I thought that my years at the Max Planck were not wasted.

Blohmann: How was your life outside of math during your time in Bonn? Bonn is not Paris or Berlin and, as I know, you’re a cultured person?

Borot: I must say, I was extremely happy to get away from Paris and didn’t even consider to return. I come from a small village in the center of France. I'm not too attracted by big towns. Before Bonn, I was in Geneva, which was really a beautiful place for nature, so when I arrived to Bonn, for the first 2 years, it was hard. It felt gray at the time. I had some changes in my personal life, I knew nobody, I was not very social, and I was travelling a lot. In my first year I spent more than half of my time away for conferences and to work with people. But then I volunteered to give a course at the University, so I had to be there every week. For 6 months I didn’t travel much and only went to events which were really essential. Then I started to meet some people, some friends. This happened randomly because of a guest at the institute who was organizing a cineclub. I went there once and that’s where I met some of the persons that later became very close friends, which gave me a different access to Bonn. From that point I started to enjoy it. I didn’t see it gray anymore. The Rhine is very nice, the green is not far with the Siebengebirge, the Rheinaue, the Hofgarten, all these things, and that you can walk everywhere! Once you know to enjoy it, it is really pleasant. Later I got married and my wife came to Bonn as well, so I was exploring the space even more.

Blohmann: Is there something particular you miss about Bonn or MPIM?

Borot: Of course, the last months in the MPI were very special. It was a bit sad that I couldn’t meet people [due to Corona]. One thing I miss from Bonn is this rich environment of lectures, talks, visitors, which is really making this place extremely enjoyable because you are exposed to a lot of different mathematics, and just by diffusion you learn a lot from this. That’s perhaps the thing that is unique or rare that the MPIM has, which will be much harder to recreate at other places like at the university. Right now, everything is shut down. But I will keep this experience in mind. If I am later in a position to take decisions or to recreate something, I can find some inspiration from what happened in Bonn.

Blohmann: This is a good plan. As you know from MPIM history, we exist because Hirzebruch liked the IAS in Princeton so much. Did you find the language and culture in Bonn difficult to get used to?

Borot: No, I never had this kind of prejudices in Germany that some people may have. I could speak German before. In fact, I spoke way better German before I arrived to Bonn. I must say my German has declined during my 7 years in Bonn.

Blohmann: Now you have to brush it up?

Borot: I'm taking courses, because I have to teach in German next year.

Blohmann: Come on Gaëtan, your German is so good, you’re beyond courses! You should read books in German.

Borot: I read books without any problems since 10 years. However, it is speaking which has always been difficult for me, and I never did math in German. Even for a simple sentence, like explaining a proof in German, I don’t have the vocabulary.

Blohmann: I see. But that’s the same for me. At MPIM I haven’t talked math in German for a long time. What are your big goals for the next step of your career?

Borot: I'm not a person who works on big problems. I am more interested in constructions, ideas, connecting several things. One of my goals is to understand some constructions coming from quantum field theory in a more unified way. This is not about the physics itself, but many current constructions in geometry have a quantum field theory flavor. Physicists have a lot of success in making predictions that interest geometers because they can jump from one thing to another by steps that are not well-defined or rigorous, so they can forsee that this is going to be connected to that, and can use ideas from there to solve problems here, or use some dualities which convert a hard problem into an easy one. For example with mirror symmetry or in geometric Langlands. I would like to make such relations into concrete mathematics. This often brings interesting and new results.

Blohmann: Thank you for the enjoyable and interesting conversation, Gaëtan. We certainly miss you here! But I am sure that we will see you in Bonn often and that you will bring mathematics at the Humboldt University and in Bonn closer together. And this is what the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics is about.