Michael Freedman

Freedman was born in Los Angeles, California, in the United States. His father, Benedict Freedman, was an American Jewish aeronautical engineer, musician, writer, and mathematician.{{cite book |title=Planting and Reaping Albright: Politics, Ideology, and Interpreting the Bible |first=Burke O. |last=Long |publisher=Penn State Press |year=2008 |page=21 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R1VXTu1tchwC&pg=PA21 |isbn=978-0271039848 }} His mother, Nancy Mars Freedman, performed as an actress and also trained as an artist.{{citation|url=https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-nancy-freedman-20100822-story.html|journal=Los Angeles Times|date=August 22, 2010|first=Dennis|last=McLellan|title=Nancy Freedman dies at 90; feminist had long and wide-ranging literary career}}. His parents cowrote a series of novels together.{{citation|url=http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-benedict-freedman-20120305,0,6790528.story|journal=Los Angeles Times|date=March 4, 2012|first=Valerie J.|last=Nelson|title=Benedict Freedman dies at 92; author and Occidental professor}}. He entered the University of California, Berkeley, but dropped out after two semesters.{{cite web |url=https://www.simonsfoundation.org/2013/11/12/michael-freedman/ |title = Michael Freedman| date=November 11, 2013 }} In the same year he wrote a letter to Ralph Fox, a Princeton University professor at the time, and was admitted to the university's graduate school, where in 1968 he continued his studies and received a Ph.D. in 1973 for his doctoral dissertation titled Codimension-Two Surgery, written under the supervision of William Browder. After graduating, Freedman returned to Berkeley, where he was a lecturer in the department of mathematics until 1975. He left Berkeley to become a member of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton. In 1976 he was appointed assistant professor in the department of mathematics at the University of California, San Diego. He spent the year 1980/81 at IAS, then returned to UCSD, where in 1982 he was promoted to professor. He was appointed the Charles Lee Powell chair of mathematics at UCSD in 1985.

Freedman has received numerous awards and honors including Sloan and Guggenheim Fellowships, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the National Medal of Science. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Mathematical Society.[https://www.ams.org/profession/fellows-list List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society], retrieved 2012-12-29. In addition to winning a Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in 1986 in Berkeley, he was an Invited Speaker at the ICM in 1983 in Warsaw{{cite book|author=Freedman, M. H.|chapter=The disk theorem for four-dimensional manifolds|pages=647––663|title=Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians (August 16–24, 1983, Warsaw)|volume=1|editor=Z. Ciesielski|editor2=C. Olech|publisher=PWN (Warsaw)|year=1984|mr=0804721}} and at the ICM in 1998 in Berlin.{{cite book|author=Freedman, Michael H.|chapter=Topological views on computational complexity|title=Doc. Math. (Bielefeld) Extra Vol. ICM Berlin, 1998, vol. II|year=1998|pages=453–464|chapter-url=https://www.elibm.org/ft/10011701000}} He currently works at Microsoft Station Q at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where his team is involved in the development of the topological quantum computer.

• {{cite journal | last1=Freedman | first1=Michael Hartley | title=The topology of four-dimensional manifolds | mr=679066 | year=1982 | journal=Journal of Differential Geometry | issn=0022-040X | volume=17 | issue=3 | pages=357–453| doi=10.4310/jdg/1214437136 | doi-access=free }}
• Michael H. Freedman and Frank Quinn, Topology of 4-manifolds, Princeton Mathematical Series, vol 39, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1990. {{ISBN|0-691-08577-3}}
• {{cite journal|first1=Cynthia L.|last1= Curtis|first2= Michael H.|last2= Freedman| first3=Wu Chung|last3= Hsiang|author3-link=Wu-Chung Hsiang|first4=Richard|last4= Stong|title= A decomposition theorem for h-cobordant smooth simply-connected compact 4-manifolds|journal=Inventiones Mathematicae|volume= 123 |year=1996|issue= 2|pages=343–348|mr=1374205|doi=10.1007/s002220050031|bibcode= 1996InMat.123..343C|s2cid= 189819783}}
• Freedman, Michael H.: Z2-systolic-freedom. Proceedings of the Kirbyfest (Berkeley, California, 1998), 113–123, Geom. Topol. Monogr., 2, Geom. Topol. Publ., Coventry, 1999.
• Freedman, Michael H.; Meyer, David A.; Luo, Feng: Z2-systolic freedom and quantum codes. Mathematics of quantum computation, 287–320, Comput. Math. Ser., Chapman & Hall/CRC, Boca Raton, Florida, 2002.

• 4-manifold
• 5-manifold
• Casson handle
• Exotic R⁴
• Fake 4-ball
• Intersection form of a 4-manifold
• Möbius energy

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• [https://web.archive.org/web/20230325101351/https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/michaelf/ Michael H. Freedman, Microsoft Technical Fellow and Director of Station Q]
• {{MathGenealogy|id=1365}}

{{Fields medalists}}{{Winners of the National Medal of Science|math-stat-comp}}

{{Veblen Prize recipients}}

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Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences

Category:20th-century American mathematicians

Category:21st-century American mathematicians

Category:American people of Romanian-Jewish descent

Category:Fields Medalists

Category:National Medal of Science laureates

Category:MacArthur Fellows

Category:Microsoft technical fellows

Category:University of California, Santa Barbara faculty

Category:Princeton University alumni

Category:Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars

Category:1951 births

Category:Living people

Category:Academics from Los Angeles

Category:Fellows of the American Mathematical Society

Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Category:Sloan Research Fellows

Category:Mathematicians from California

Category:University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty