M. S. Narasimhan | |
|---|---|
 Narasimhan in 2010 | |
| Born | Mudumbai Seshachalu Narasimhan (1932-06-07)7 June 1932 |
| Died | 15 May 2021(2021-05-15) (aged 88) |
| Alma mater | Tata Institute of Fundamental Research |
| Spouse | Sakuntala Narasimhan |
| Children | 2 (includingShobhana) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions | Tata Institute of Fundamental Research,International Center for Theoretical Physics |
| Doctoral advisor | K. S. Chandrasekharan |
| Doctoral students | |
Mudumbai Seshachalu NarasimhanFRS (7 June 1932 – 15 May 2021) was an Indianmathematician. His focus areas includednumber theory,algebraic geometry,representation theory, andpartial differential equations. He was a pioneer in the study ofmoduli spaces ofholomorphic vector bundles onprojective varieties. His work is considered the foundation forKobayashi–Hitchin correspondence that linksdifferential geometry and algebraic geometry ofvector bundles overcomplex manifolds. He was also known for his collaboration with mathematicianC. S. Seshadri, for their proof of theNarasimhan–Seshadri theorem which proved the necessary conditions forstable vector bundles on aRiemann surface.
He was a recipient of thePadma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian honor, in 1990, and theOrdre national du Mérite from France in 1989. He was an elected Fellow of theRoyal Society, London. He was also the recipient ofShanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in 1975 and was the only Indian to receive theKing Faisal International Prize in the field of science.
Narasimhan was born on 7 June 1932 into a rural family inTandarai in present day Tamil Nadu, as the eldest among five children.[1][2] His family hailed from theNorth Arcot district. After his early education in rural part of the country, he joinedLoyola College in Madras for his undergraduate education. Here he studied under Father Charles Racine, a French Jesuit professor, who in turn had studied under the French mathematician andgeometerÉlie Cartan.[3] He joined theTata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR),Bombay, for his graduate studies in 1953. He obtained his Ph.D. from theUniversity of Mumbai in 1960 where his advisor was the mathematicianK. S. Chandrasekharan, who was known for his work on number theory.[3]
Narasimhan started his career in 1960 when he joined the faculty of theTata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR); he later went on to become an honorary fellow.[4][5] His areas of focus while at TIFR included studyingpartial differential operators andelliptic operators.[3] During this time, he visited France under the invitation ofLaurent Schwartz and was exposed to the works of other French mathematicians includingJean-Pierre Serre,Claude Chevalley,Élie Cartan, andJean Leray.[3] He contractedpleurisy during his time in France and was hospitalized. He would later recount the incident as exposing him to the "real France" and further strengthening hisleftist sympathies which were already triggered by his interactions with theTrotskyist Schwartz.[3]
During his time in France he also collaborated with Japanese mathematicianTakeshi Kotake working on the analyticity theorems for determining specific types ofelliptic operators that satisfiedCauchy–Schwarz inequalities. His work with Kotake was known as theKotake–Narasimhan theorem for elliptic operators in the setting of ultradifferentiable functions.[3][6]
He collaborated with Indian mathematicianC. S. Seshadri for the ground-breakingNarasimhan–Seshadri theorem which has been at the core of algebraic geometry and number theory for over half a century.[3][7] The theorem derived the relation between the purely algebraic notion ofstable vector bundles onRiemann surfaces.[7] The theorem made a connection between two areas of modern geometry viz.differential geometry andalgebraic geometry.[5] Both Seshadri and Narasimhan were electedFellows of the Royal Society for their work on this topic. He also collaborated with mathematicianR. R. Simha on proving the existence of moduli of general type complex structures on a realanalytic manifold. These measures were calledSimha–Narasimhan measures onRiemann surfaces.[8]
For his work, Narasimhan was considered a pioneer in the study ofmoduli spaces ofholomorphic vector bundles onprojective varieties.[1] His work is considered the foundation forKobayashi–Hitchin correspondence that linksdifferential geometry andalgebraic geometry ofvector bundles overcomplex manifolds.[1]
When the National Board of Higher Mathematics was established in India, Narasimhan was the first chairman of the board.[3] In 1992, Narasimhan retired from TIFR, and became the head of the research group in Mathematics at theInternational Centre for Theoretical Physics inTrieste.[4][5] He had also served as a visiting scholar at theInstitute for Advanced Study, inPrinceton, New Jersey in 1968.[9] After retiring from ICTP, he settled inBangalore.[5]
He was aFellow of the Royal Society, London as well as recipient ofFrench National Order of Merit in 1989.[10] He was awarded thePadma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian honor, in 1990.[11] He was also the recipient of theShanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in 1975,Third World Academy of Sciences Prize for Mathematics in 1987, and theSrinivasa Ramanujan Medal in 1988.[12] He was also the recipient of theKing Faisal International Prize for Science in 2006, an award that he won jointly with mathematicianSimon Donaldson, Imperial College.[1][11][13] As of 2021, he was the only Indian to have won the King Faisal International Prize for Science.[14][15] Also in 2021, he became a laureate of theAsian Scientist 100 by theAsian Scientist.[16]
Narasimhan was married toSakuntala Narasimhan, a classical musician, journalist and a consumer rights activist. The couple had a daughter,Shobhana Narasimhan, a scientist and professor atJawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, and a son.[5] Narasimhan was interested inIndian classical music, contemporary art and painting, as well asTamil literature.[3]
Narasimhan died on 15 May 2021, inBangalore at the age of 88. He had been undergoing treatment forcancer for the previous year.[4][5]
