Ian Agol
{{short description|American mathematician}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Ian Agol
| image = Ian Agol, Aarhus 2012.jpg
| image_size = 250px
| alt =
| caption = Ian Agol at Aarhus University, August 2012
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1970|05|13|mf=y}}
| birth_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S.
| death_date =
| death_place =
| residence =
| fields = Mathematics
| workplaces = University of California, Berkeley
| alma_mater = California Institute of Technology
University of California, San Diego
| doctoral_advisor = Michael Freedman
| doctoral_students =
| known_for = Virtually Haken conjecture
Freedman–He–Wang conjecture
Wise's conjecture
Marden tameness conjecture
| awards = Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics (2016){{citation|url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/by-solving-the-mysteries-of-shape-shifting-spaces-mathematician-wins-3-million-prize/|title=By Solving the Mysteries of Shape-Shifting Spaces, Mathematician Wins $3-Million Prize|magazine=Scientific American|date=8 November 2015|first=Evelyn|last=Lamb}}
Veblen Prize in Geometry (2013)
Senior Berwick Prize (2012)
Clay Research Award (2009)
}}
Ian Agol ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|eɪ|ˌ|g|ʊ|l}}; born May 13, 1970) is an American mathematician who deals primarily with the topology of three-dimensional manifolds.{{cite book|last1=Mackenzie|first1=Dana|last2=Cipra|author2-link=Barry Arthur Cipra|first2=Barry|title=What's happening in the mathematical sciences|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e0vzZak6jwAC&pg=PA16|date=December 20, 2006|publisher=American Mathematical Society|isbn=978-0-8218-3585-2|pages=15–16}}
Education and career
Agol graduated with B.S. in mathematics from the California Institute of Technology in 1992 and obtained his Ph.D. in 1998 from the University of California, San Diego. At UCSD, his advisor was Michael Freedman and his thesis was Topology of Hyperbolic 3-Manifolds.{{mathgenealogy|id=39962}}. He is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley{{cite web|url=http://math.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/ian-agol|title=Ian Agol|publisher=University of California, Berkeley Department of Mathematics|access-date=June 25, 2011}} and a former professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.{{cite web|url=http://www.math.uic.edu/~agol/|title=Ian Agol|publisher=University of Illinois at Chicago|access-date=June 25, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110616123420/http://www.math.uic.edu/~agol/|archive-date=June 16, 2011|url-status=dead}}
Contributions
In 2004, Agol proved the Marden tameness conjecture, a conjecture of Albert Marden.{{cite web|url=http://www.claymath.org/research_award/ |title=Clay Research Award |publisher=Clay Mathematics Institute |access-date=June 25, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110626122056/http://www.claymath.org/research_award/ |archive-date=June 26, 2011 }} It states that a hyperbolic 3-manifold with finitely generated fundamental group is homeomorphic to the interior of a compact 3-manifold. The conjecture was also independently proven by Danny Calegari and David Gabai, and implies the Ahlfors measure conjecture.
In 2012, he announced a proof of the virtually Haken conjecture, which was published a year later.{{cite journal|mr=3104553|last=Agol|first=Ian|title=The virtual Haken conjecture. With an appendix by Agol, Daniel Groves, and Jason Manning|journal=Documenta Mathematica|volume=18|year=2013|pages=1045–1087|doi=10.4171/dm/421|doi-access=free |s2cid=255586740}} The conjecture (now theorem) states that every aspherical 3-manifold is finitely covered by a Haken manifold.
In 2022, he posted on the ArXiv a proof of Cameron Gordon's 1981 conjecture on knot theory saying that ribbon concordance forms a partial ordering on the set of knots.{{Cite web |last=Sloman |first=Leila |date=2022-05-18 |title=How Complex Is a Knot? New Proof Reveals Ranking System That Works. |url=https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-complex-is-a-knot-new-proof-reveals-ranking-system-that-works-20220518/ |access-date=2022-05-20 |magazine=Quanta Magazine |language=en}}{{Cite arXiv |last=Agol |first=Ian |date=2022-01-10 |title=Ribbon concordance of knots is a partial order |eprint=2201.03626 |class=math}}
Awards and honors
Agol, Calegari, and Gabai received the 2009 Clay Research Award for their proof of the Marden tameness conjecture.
In 2005, Agol was a Guggenheim Fellow.{{cite web|url=http://www.gf.org/fellows/109-ian-agol|title=Ian Agol – Guggenheim Fellows Finder|publisher=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation|access-date=June 25, 2011|archive-date=September 21, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120921230057/http://www.gf.org/fellows/109-ian-agol|url-status=dead}} In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.[https://www.ams.org/profession/fellows-list List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society], retrieved 2012-11-03.
In 2013, Agol was awarded the Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry, along with Daniel Wise.[https://www.ams.org/profession/prizebooklet-2013.pdf Joint Mathematics Meetings Prize Booklet: January 2013 Prizes and Awards: Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry, pp. 14–18]
In 2015, he was awarded the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics, "for spectacular contributions to low dimensional topology and geometric group theory, including work on the solutions of the tameness, virtually Haken and virtual fibering conjectures."{{cite news|url=http://nyti.ms/1PwMoq3|title=Breakthrough Prizes Give Top Scientists the Rock Star Treatment|newspaper=New York Times|date= Nov 8, 2015}}
In 2016, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.{{citation|url=http://www.nasonline.org/news-and-multimedia/news/may-3-2016-NAS-Election.html|title=National Academy of Sciences Members and Foreign Associates Elected|department=News from the National Academy of Sciences|publisher=National Academy of Sciences|date=May 3, 2016|access-date=2016-05-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160506052951/http://www.nasonline.org/news-and-multimedia/news/may-3-2016-NAS-Election.html|archive-date=May 6, 2016|url-status=dead}}.
Personal
His identical twin brother, Eric Agol,{{Cite journal | date = January 2016 | title = Interview with Ian Agol | journal = Notices of the American Mathematical Society | volume = 63 | issue = 1| page = 24 | url = https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201601/rnoti-p23.pdf}}{{cite news |date=October 4, 2005 |title=Obituaries – Alan Agol |page=C2 |newspaper=Visalia Times-Delta |url=https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/visaliatimesdelta/access/1773118711.html?FMT=CITE&FMTS=CITE:FT&type=current&date=Oct+04%2C+2005&author=&pub=Visalia+Times+-+Delta&desc=OBITUARIES|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121107070050/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/visaliatimesdelta/access/1773118711.html?FMT=CITE&FMTS=CITE:FT&type=current&date=Oct+04,+2005&author=&pub=Visalia+Times+-+Delta&desc=OBITUARIES|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 7, 2012}}{{cite news|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/marinij/obituary.aspx?n=alan-agol&pid=15297933|title=Alan Agol|newspaper=Marin Independent Journal|date=October 5, 2005}} is an astronomy professor at the University of Washington in Seattle.{{cite web|url=http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/agol/|title=Eric Agol|publisher=University of Washington Department of Astronomy|access-date=June 25, 2011}}
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
- {{Google Scholar id | prNMjBwAAAAJ }}
{{Breakthrough Prize laureates}}
{{Veblen Prize recipients}}
{{Authority control}}
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Category:20th-century American mathematicians
Category:21st-century American mathematicians
Category:University of California, San Diego alumni
Category:University of Illinois Chicago faculty
Category:University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty
Category:Clay Research Award recipients
Category:Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Category:People from Hollywood, Los Angeles