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Michael J. Larsen

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Michael Larsen
NationalityAmerican
Alma materPrinceton University
Harvard University
AwardsPutnam Fellow (1981, 1983)
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsUniversity of Pennsylvania
University of Missouri
Indiana University Bloomington
Thesis Unitary groups and L-adic representations  (1988)
Doctoral advisorGerd Faltings

Michael Jeffrey Larsen is an American mathematician, a distinguished professor of mathematics at Indiana University Bloomington.[1][2]

Academic biography

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In high school, Larsen tied with four other competitors for the top score in the 1977 International Mathematical Olympiad in Belgrade, winning a gold medal.[3][4] As an undergraduate mathematics student at Harvard University, Larsen became a Putnam Fellow in 1981 and 1983.[5] He graduated from Harvard in 1984,[6] and earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1988, under the supervision of Gerd Faltings.[7] After working at the Institute for Advanced Study he joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in 1990, and then moved to the University of Missouri in 1997.[6] He joined the Indiana University faculty in 2001.[1]

His wife Ayelet Lindenstrauss is also a mathematician and Indiana University professor.[8] Their son Daniel at age 13 became the youngest person to publish a crossword in the New York Times.[9]

Research

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Larsen is known for his research in arithmetic algebraic geometry, combinatorial group theory, combinatorics, and number theory.[1][2] He has written highly cited papers on domino tiling of Aztec diamonds,[10] topological quantum computing,[11][12] and on the representation theory of braid groups.[13]

Awards and honors

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In 2013 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society, for "contributions to group theory, number theory, topology, and algebraic geometry".[14] He received the E. H. Moore Research Article Prize of the AMS in 2013 (jointly with Richard Pink).

Selected publications

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  • Elkies, Noam; Kuperberg, Greg; Larsen, Michael; Propp, James (1992), "Alternating-sign matrices and domino tilings. I", Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics, 1 (2): 111–132, arXiv:math.CO/9201305, doi:10.1023/A:1022420103267, MR 1226347, S2CID 41082861.
  • Freedman, Michael H.; Larsen, Michael; Wang, Zhenghan (2002a), "A modular functor which is universal for quantum computation", Communications in Mathematical Physics, 227 (3): 605–622, Bibcode:2002CMaPh.227..605F, doi:10.1007/s002200200645, MR 1910833, S2CID 8990600.
  • Freedman, Michael H.; Larsen, Michael J.; Wang, Zhenghan (2002b), "The two-eigenvalue problem and density of Jones representation of braid groups", Communications in Mathematical Physics, 228 (1): 177–199, arXiv:math/0103200, Bibcode:2002CMaPh.228..177F, doi:10.1007/s002200200636, MR 1911253, S2CID 8163385.
  • Freedman, Michael H.; Kitaev, Alexei; Larsen, Michael J.; Wang, Zhenghan (2003), "Topological quantum computation", Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 40 (1): 31–38, arXiv:quant-ph/0101025, doi:10.1090/S0273-0979-02-00964-3, MR 1943131.

References

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  1. ^ a b c Dawson, Kate (March 6, 2011), "IU gives 5 faculty rank of distinguished professor", Indiana Daily Student.
  2. ^ a b Michael J. Larsen, IU News Room, March 30, 2011.
  3. ^ Shenker, Israel (July 14, 1977), "High School Math Wizards Do It by Numbers and U.S. Is No.1", New York Times.
  4. ^ International Mathematical Olympiad 1977 (Belgrade, Yugoslavia) Individual Scores, Joseph Myers, polyomino.org.uk, retrieved 2012-08-16.
  5. ^ The Mathematical Association of America's William Lowell Putnam Competition, Mathematical Association of America, retrieved 2012-08-16.
  6. ^ a b Member biography, Indiana U. Alliance of Distinguished and Titled Professors, retrieved 2012-08-16.
  7. ^ Michael Jeffrey Larsen at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  8. ^ Howell, Brittani (February 20, 2017). "Indiana 7th grader becomes crossword puzzle creator". AP News.
  9. ^ Shortz, Will (14 Feb 2017). "The Youngest Crossword Constructor in New York Times History". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-03-25.
  10. ^ Elkies et al. (1992).
  11. ^ Freedman, Larsen & Wang (2002a); Freedman et al. (2003).
  12. ^ Klarreich, Erica (February 22, 2003), "Knotty calculations: a quantum version of braids could lay the groundwork for tomorrow's computers", Science News.
  13. ^ Freedman, Larsen & Wang (2002a).
  14. ^ 2014 Class of the Fellows of the AMS, American Mathematical Society, retrieved 2013-11-04.
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