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Deligne Day: October 5, 2013

A bit of press release copy-pasting for you now, as the Simons Foundation announced a celebration of the mathematics of Pierre Deligne. When the release first went out it was called ‘Deligne Day’, but cooler heads have prevailed and it’s now “A Celebration of the Mathematics of Pierre Deligne”. It’s also my dad’s birthday, as it happens.

Science Lives profile of Robert MacPherson

Just quickly, here’s something I saw on MetaFilter and enjoyed. The Simons Foundation has a “Science Lives” series of “extended interviews with some of the giants of twentieth century mathematics and science”.

This one is with Robert MacPherson, who invented instersection homology with Mark Goresky. I’d never heard of him and topology gives me the heebie-jeebs, but I’ve spent a very happy morning reading the fascinating biography and listening to the interview. The interviewer is Robert L. Bryant, also a research mathematician, so the questions don’t stray away from difficult topics. MacPherson comes across as an all-round excellent guy; I really recommend playing through all the clips when you have some time.

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