Frederick J. Almgren, Jr.

Frederick Justin Almgren
Born (1933-07-03)July 3, 1933
Birmingham, Alabama
Died February 5, 1997(1997-02-05) (aged 63)
Princeton, New Jersey
Nationality United States
Fields Geometric measure theory
Institutions Princeton University
Alma mater Brown University
Doctoral advisor Herbert Federer
Notable students
Known for Plateau's problem, theory of varifolds, Almgren–Pitts min-max theory
Influenced Geometric measure theory
Notable awards Guggenheim Fellowship (1974)
Spouse Jean Taylor

Frederick Justin Almgren, Jr. (July 3, 1933, in Birmingham, Alabama – February 5, 1997, in Princeton, New Jersey) was a mathematician working in geometric measure theory.

He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1974. Between 1963 and 1992 he was a frequent visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.[1]

He wrote one of the longest papers in mathematics,[2] proving what is now called the Almgren regularity theorem: the singular set of an m-dimensional mass-minimizing hypersurface has dimension at most m−2: he also developed the concept of varifold,[3] first defined by L. C. Young in (Young 1951),[4] and proposed them as generalized solutions to Plateau's problem, in order to deal with the problem even when a concept of orientation is missing. He played also an important role in the founding of The Geometry Center.

He was a student of Herbert Federer, one of the founders of geometric measure theory, and was the advisor and husband (as his second wife) of Jean Taylor. His daughter, Ann S. Almgren, is an applied mathematician who works on computational simulations in astrophysics.

Selected publications

Notes

  1. According to Almgren's Community of Scholars web site Profile and to (Mitchell 1980, p. 48): the latter reference lists his appointments at the Institute only up to 1978.
  2. Published in book form as (Almgren 2000).
  3. See his mimeographed notes (Almgren 1964) and his book (Almgren 1966): the former one is the first exposition of his ideas, but the book (in both its first and second editions (Almgren 2001)) had and still has a wider circulation.
  4. Young calls these gemetric objects generalized surfaces: in his commemorative papers describing the research of Almgren, Brian White (1997,p.1452, footnote 1, 1998,p.682, footnote 1) writes that these are "essentially the same class of surfaces".

References

Biographical references

General references

Scientific references

External links

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