Selman Akbulut

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Selman Akbulut
Selman Akbulut.jpg
Selman Akbulut at Oberwolfach in 2012.
Born1949
Balıkesir, Turkey
NationalityTurkish
EducationUniversity of California
Occupation Mathematician
Known for Akbulut cork

Selman Akbulut (born 1949) is a Turkish mathematician, specializing in research in topology, and geometry. He was a professor at Michigan State University until February 2020.

Contents

Career

In 1975, he earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley as a student of Robion Kirby. In topology, he has worked on handlebody theory, low-dimensional manifolds, [1] symplectic topology, G2 manifolds. In the topology of real-algebraic sets, he and Henry C. King proved that every compact piecewise-linear manifold is a real-algebraic set; they discovered new topological invariants of real-algebraic sets. [2]

He was a visiting scholar several times at the Institute for Advanced Study (in 1975-76, 1980–81, 2002, and 2005). [3]

On February 14, 2020, Akbulut was removed from his tenured position at MSU by the Board of Trustees, after disputes over his teaching allotments and communications with colleagues. [4] [5] [6]

Contributions

He has developed 4-dimensional handlebody techniques, settling conjectures and solving problems about 4-manifolds, such as a conjecture of Christopher Zeeman, [7] the Harer–Kas–Kirby conjecture, a problem of Martin Scharlemann, [8] and problems of Sylvain Cappell and Julius Shaneson. [9] [10] [11] He constructed an exotic compact 4-manifold (with boundary) from which he discovered "Akbulut corks". [12] [13] [14] [15]

His most recent results concern the 4-dimensional smooth Poincaré conjecture. [16] He has supervised 14 Ph.D. students as of 2019. He has more than 100 papers and three books published, and several books edited.

Notes

  1. ↑ Akbulut, Selman (2016). 4-manifolds. Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780198784869 . Retrieved 13 August 2019.
  2. ↑ S. Akbulut and H.C. King, Topology of real algebraic sets, MSRI Publications, 25. Springer-Verlag, New York (1992) ISBN   0-387-97744-9
  3. ↑ Institute for Advanced Study: A Community of Scholars Archived 2013-01-06 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ↑ Graham, Karly; Monroe, Maddie. "Board of Trustees fires tenured professor for cause". The State News.
  5. ↑ Stanley, Samuel L. "Dismissal of Tenured Faculty for Cause" (PDF). MSU Board of Trustees. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
  6. ↑ Frost, Mikenzie (14 February 2020). "MSU Trustees dismiss tenured professor, address Title IX investigation delays". WWMT. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
  7. ↑ Akbulut, S. (1991). "A solution to a conjecture of Zeeman" . Topology. 30 (3): 513–515. doi:10.1016/0040-9383(91)90028-3.
  8. ↑ Akbulut, S. (1999). "Scharlemann's Manifold is Standard". The Annals of Mathematics. 149 (2): 497–510. arXiv: math/9712255 . doi: 10.2307/120972 . JSTOR   120972.
  9. ↑ Akbulut, S. (2010). "Cappell-Shaneson homotopy spheres are standard" (PDF). Annals of Mathematics. 171 (3): 2171–2175. doi: 10.4007/annals.2010.171.2171 . ISSN   0003-486X.
  10. ↑ Akbulut, S. (2002). "Cappell–Shaneson's 4–dimensional s –cobordism" (PDF). Geometry & Topology. 6 (1): 425–494. doi: 10.2140/gt.2002.6.425 . ISSN   1364-0380.
  11. ↑ Freedman, M.H.; Gompf, R.E.; Morrison, S.; Walker, K. (2010-06-22). "Man and machine thinking about the smooth 4-dimensional Poincaré conjecture". Quantum Topology. 1 (2): 171–208. arXiv: 0906.5177 . doi: 10.4171/qt/5 . ISSN   1663-487X.
  12. ↑ Akbulut, S. (1991-01-01). "A fake compact contractible 4-manifold" (PDF). Journal of Differential Geometry . 33 (2): 335–356. doi: 10.4310/jdg/1214446320 . ISSN   0022-040X.
  13. ↑ Akbulut, S. (1991-01-01). "An exotic 4-manifold". Journal of Differential Geometry. 33 (2): 357–361. doi: 10.4310/jdg/1214446321 . ISSN   0022-040X.
  14. ↑ Ozbagci, B.; Stipsicz, A.I. (2004). Surgery on Contact 3-Manifolds and Stein Surfaces. Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media. p. 14. ISBN   978-3-540-22944-5.
  15. ↑ Scorpan, A. (2005). The Wild World of 4-Manifolds. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Soc. p. 90. ISBN   0-8218-3749-4.
  16. ↑ Morrison, Scott (19 April 2011). "Mike Freedman on SPC4". Secret Blogging Seminar. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
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