William Paul Thurston (born October 30, 1946) is an American mathematician. He is a pioneer in the field of low-dimensional topology. In 1982, he was awarded the Fields medal for the depth and originality of his contributions to mathematics. He is currently a professor of mathematics and computer science at Cornell University (since 2003).
His early work, in the early 1970s, was mainly in foliation theory, where he had a dramatic impact. His more...
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William Paul Thurston (born October 30, 1946) is an American mathematician. He is a pioneer in the field of low-dimensional topology. In 1982, he was awarded the Fields medal for the depth and originality of his contributions to mathematics. He is currently a professor of mathematics and computer science at Cornell University (since 2003).
His early work, in the early 1970s, was mainly in foliation theory, where he had a dramatic impact. His more significant results include:
In fact, Thurston resolved so many outstanding problems in foliation theory in such a short period of time that, according to Thurston, it led to a kind of exodus from the field, where advisors counselled students against going into foliation theory because Thurston was "cleaning out the subject" (see "On Proof and Progress in Mathematics", especially section 6 ).
His later work, starting around the late 1970s, revealed that geometry, particularly hyperbolic geometry, played a fundamental role in the theory of 3...
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