Renowned mathematician to give Pitcher Lectures

Shing-Tung Yau, one of the world’s preeminent mathematicians, is visiting Lehigh for three days this week to take part in the 2016 A. Everett Pitcher Lecture Series sponsored by the department of mathematics.

Yau, the William Caspar Graustein Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University, is known for proposing the mathematics behind string theory and for strengthening the ties between differential geometry and theoretical physics. He is the author, with Steve Nadis, of The Shape of Inner Space: String Theory and the Geometry of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions.

While at Lehigh, Yau will deliver three lectures. At 7:30 p.m. today (Monday, March 21) in Lewis Lab 270, he will give a lecture titled “Geometry and Physics” that is intended for the general public. The lecture will be preceded by a reception beginning at 6:45 p.m. in the lobby of Lewis Lab.

At 4:10 p.m. on Tuesday (March 22) in Sinclair Auditorium, Yau will give a lecture on “Nonlinear Equations in Geometry” and at 1:10 p.m. on Wednesday (March 23) in Neville 3 Auditorium, he will speak on “Kahler-Einstein Metrics and the DUY Correspondence.”

Yau was born in China’s Guangdong Province and grew up in Hong Kong. When he was just 22, he received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley.

He has received many awards, including the Fields Medal in 1982, the MacArthur Fellowship in 1984, the Crafoord Prize in 1994, the National Medal of Science in 1997 and the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 2010. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Lincei of Italy, and he is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the American Physical Society

The A. Everett Pitcher Lecture Series has been held annually since 1983 in honor of the late Everett Pitcher, who served on Lehigh’s mathematics faculty from 1938 to 1978, when he retired as Distinguished Professor. Pitcher also served as secretary of the American Mathematical Society from 1967 to 1988.


Story by Kurt Pfitzer