Turkish mathematician
Selman Akbulut (born 1949) is a Turkish mathematician , specializing in research in topology , and geometry . He was a professor at Michigan State University until February 2020.
Career
In 1975 he earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley as a student of Robion Kirby . In topology, he has worked on handlebody theory, low-dimensional manifolds ,[1] symplectic topology , G2 manifolds . In the topology of real-algebraic sets , he and Henry C. King proved that every compact piecewise-linear manifold is a real-algebraic set; they discovered new topological invariants of real-algebraic sets.[2]
He was a visiting scholar several times at the Institute for Advanced Study (in 1975-76, 1980–81, 2002, and 2005).[3]
On February 14, 2020, Akbulut was removed from his tenured position at MSU by the Board of Trustees, after complaints regarding his teaching attendance and communications with colleagues.[4] [5] [6]
Contributions
He has developed 4-dimensional handlebody techniques, settling conjectures and solving problems about 4-manifolds, such as a conjecture of Christopher Zeeman ,[7] the Harer–Kas–Kirby conjecture , a problem of Martin Scharlemann ,[8] and problems of Sylvain Cappell and Julius Shaneson .[9] [10] [11]
He constructed an exotic compact 4-manifold (with boundary) from which he discovered "Akbulut corks ".[12] [13] [14] [15]
His most recent results concern the 4-dimensional smooth Poincaré conjecture .[16] He has supervised 14 Ph.D students as of 2019. He has more than 100 papers and three books published, and several books edited.
Notes
^ Akbulut, Selman (2016). 4-manifolds . Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198784869 . Retrieved 13 August 2019 .
^ S. Akbulut and H.C. King, Topology of real algebraic sets , MSRI Publications, 25. Springer-Verlag, New York (1992) ISBN 0-387-97744-9
^ Institute for Advanced Study: A Community of Scholars Archived 2013-01-06 at the Wayback Machine
^ Graham, Karly; Monroe, Maddie. "Board of Trustees fires tenured professor for cause" . The State News .
^ Stanley, Samuel L. "Dismissal of Tenured Faculty for Cause" (PDF) . MSU Board of Trustees . Retrieved 14 February 2020 .
^ Frost, Mikenzie (14 February 2020). "MSU Trustees dismiss tenured professor, address Title IX investigation delays" . WWMT . Retrieved 14 February 2020 .
^ S. Akbulut, A solution to a conjecture of Zeeman, Topology, vol.30, no.3, (1991), 513-515.
^ S. Akbulut, Scharlemann's manifold is standard, Ann of Math., 149 (1999) 497-510.
^ S. Akbulut, Cappell-Shaneson homotopy spheres are standard Ann. of Math., 171 (2010) 2171-2175.
^ S. Akbulut, Cappell-Shaneson's 4-dimensional s-cobordism, Geometry-Topology, vol.6, (2002), 425-494.
^ M. Freedman, R. Gompf, S. Morrison, K. Walker, Man and machine thinking about the smooth 4-dimensional Poincaré conjecture. Quantum Topol. 1 (2010), no. 2, 171–208
^ S. Akbulut, A Fake compact contractible 4-manifold, Journal of Differential Geometry 33, (1991), 335-356
^ S. Akbulut, An exotic 4-manifold, Journ. of Diff. Geom. 33, (1991), 357-361
^ B. Ozbagci and A.I. Stipsicz. Surgery on contact 3-manifolds and Stein surfaces (p. 14), Springer ISBN 3-540-22944-2
^ A. Scorpan, The wild world of 4-manifolds (p.90), AMS Pub. ISBN 0-8218-3749-4
^ Morrison, Scott. "Poincaré conjecture" . Secret Blogging Seminar . Retrieved 13 August 2019 .
External links
International National Academics Other