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Michael Atiyah - Prizes (23/93)

2,426 views · Published 21 June 2017 · 0:49 · Indexed 30 October 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · Science & Technology

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British mathematician Michael Atiyah (1929-2019) studied in Cambridge where he became a Fellow of Trinity College and later held professorships at Princeton and Oxford. He is best known for his work on the K-theory and the Atiyah-Singer Index Theorem. [Listener: Nigel Hitchin; date recorded: 1997]

TRANSCRIPT: You got a Smith’s Prize here, you're reasonably confident that you're going to succeed and get a fellowship somewhere and you know, reasonable job, so that gave you a kind of longer term horizon on which you could plan things. I think that was a sufficiently defining stage that… then onwards I didn't expect to quit, yes. So I think these prizes, although you get a bit blasé about them for students, are probably very important psychologically for the students concerned. They are a mark of encouragement at a critical stage, and I think that particular stage of the first year is very helpful because you're beginning to do original research, something on your own for the first time.  You've had that kind of attempt, you've got to […] it up, so I think it does serve a very useful purpose, certainly did in my case, yes.

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