Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1997

many of its brightest stars turn out to be meteors, reaching azenith while very young, only to vanish into outer darkness. A measure of Sir Michael's genius is that his mathematical ideas led to a new synthesis of seemingly disparate areas of enquiry and thence to hosts of applications, so that his methods could dominate the field for many fecund years. To think of reality as composed of dimensionless dots or particles is to see it as resembling an incredibly detailed and minute 'pointilliste' painting. Sir Michael, however, saw it more as a Jackson Pollock canvas, a web of strings of paint, in a mighty maze, though not without aplan. This view is more easily accounted for by 'topology', the study of objects that bend and stretch, in the so- called 'rubber sheet geometry'. In particular, this has been fashioned into abridge over the divide between mathematics and physics. Topology also offers ways of stringing or threading together seemingly disparate areas of mathematical thinking. By linking topology to algebraic geometry, a new 'topological invariant, appeared, providing a base for a novel kind of mathematics, K- theory. This in turn was the basis of his collaboration w i th Isadore Singer that resulted in the 'index theorem' which won Atiyah the Fields Medal. Working it all out was a10-year task. The index theorem proved useful in theoretical physics, for when it was found that right-handed and left-handed particles behave differently, the theorem furnished a method of measuring these asymmetries. The applications of topology to quantum mechanics have also been a fruitful development in Atiyah's work. Thus, in his middle years, he was still engaged in some of his most influential work in mathematics. Sir Christopher Zeeman has explained that Atiyah has connected so much in so many different areas that he has remained preeminent in world mathematics for 30 years. Mathematical research requires neither expensive laboratories nor costly apparatus; nor does it involve painstaking examination of corrupt and corruptible text, or burrowing like amole into the learned warrens of great libraries. The mathematician must understand the brief history of previous mathematical innovation and then sit with a pad and pencil and think afresh. It requires intense concentration, laser sharp, to kindle the almost spontaneous combustion of thought itself, burning with that which Walter Pater considered desirable in life itself: 'a hard, gem-like flame'. This flame of mathematical thinking lights up the seemingly impenetrable walls of the labyrinth that is the unknown, what has not yet been thought. The product of Atiyah's thinking can be found in numerous papers, and in such works as K-Theory (1966), Collected Works (5 vols., 1988), Geometry and Dynamics of Magnetic Monopoles (1988), and The Geometry and Physics of Knots (1990). Claude LeBrun has called Atiyah 'one of the great mathematical teachers of our time'. Over the years he has generously made himself available to us as an external expert, giving valuable advice to our Department of Mathematics and conducting seminars on campus in 1992 and 1995. Here then is a counsellor of the highest value, a great mathematician, and a college administrator of great personal warmth and humanity. He was knighted in 1983 and awarded the Order of Merit in 1992. Made Commander of Lebanon's Order of the Cedars in 1994, he is also an honorary professor of the Chinese Academy of Science. It is my delightful duty, Mr. Chancellor, to present Sir Michael Atiyah, who entered a dark labyrinth and emerged into the light, holding a thread, to receive the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa. (Written by Andrew Parkin) The 52nd Congregation 5