Graeme Bryce Segal | |
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![]() Graeme Segal in Berkeley, 1982 | |
Born | 21 December 1941 |
Nationality | Australian |
Alma mater | University of Sydney St Catherine's College, Oxford |
Known for | Atiyah–Segal completion theorem Segal conjecture |
Spouse | Marina Warner |
Awards | Pólya Prize (1990) Sylvester Medal (2010) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Mathematics |
Institutions | St John's College, Cambridge [1] All Souls College, Oxford |
Thesis | Equivariant K-theory (1967) |
Doctoral advisor | Michael Atiyah |
Graeme Bryce Segal FRS [2] (born 21 December 1941) is an Australian mathematician, and professor at the University of Oxford.
Segal was educated at the University of Sydney, where he received his BSc degree in 1961. He went on to receive his D.Phil. in 1967 from St Catherine's College, Oxford; his thesis, written under the supervision of Michael Atiyah, was titled Equivariant K-theory.
His thesis was in the area of equivariant K-theory. The Atiyah–Segal completion theorem in that subject was a major motivation for the Segal conjecture, which he formulated. He has made many other contributions to homotopy theory in the past four decades, including an approach to infinite loop spaces. He was also a pioneer of elliptic cohomology, which is related to his interest in topological quantum field theory.
Segal was an Invited Speaker at the ICM in 1970 in Nice [3] and in 1990 in Kyoto. [4] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1982 and an Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. [5] He was awarded the Sylvester Medal by the Royal Society in 2010. [6]
He was Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry from 1990 to 1999.
Segal was elected the President of the London Mathematical Society in 2011.
He is married to writer, Marina Warner. They live in London. [7]
Sir Michael Francis Atiyah was a British-Lebanese mathematician specialising in geometry. His contributions include the Atiyah–Singer index theorem and co-founding topological K-theory. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1966 and the Abel Prize in 2004.
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Segal's Burnside ring conjecture, or, more briefly, the Segal conjecture, is a theorem in homotopy theory, a branch of mathematics. The theorem relates the Burnside ring of a finite group G to the stable cohomotopy of the classifying space BG. The conjecture was made in the mid 1970s by Graeme Segal and proved in 1984 by Gunnar Carlsson. As of 2016, this statement is still commonly referred to as the Segal conjecture, even though it now has the status of a theorem.
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The Atiyah–Segal completion theorem is a theorem in mathematics about equivariant K-theory in homotopy theory. Let G be a compact Lie group and let X be a G-CW-complex. The theorem then states that the projection map
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Dr Graeme Segal, elected fellow 1982