Shahn Majid: Difference between revisions

|image name = ShahnMajidinCambridge1998.jpgShahn Majid

|image_size image = 200pxShahnMajidinCambridge1998.jpg

|caption image_size = Shahn Majid in 1998200px

|birth_date caption = {{birth-date|1960|[[1960]]}}Shahn Majid in 1998

|death_date birth_place = [[Patna]], India

|death_place death_date = =

|residence death_place = [[UK]]

| citizenship =

| nationality = [[United Kingdom|British]]

|ethnicity fields = [[IndiaPhysicist]]n, mathematician

|fields workplaces = [[Physicist]]Queen [[MathematicianMary, University of London]]

|workplaces alma_mater = [[Queen Mary, University of LondonCambridge]]<br>[[Harvard University]]

|alma_mater doctoral_advisor = [[University ofClifford CambridgeTaubes]]</br>[[HarvardArthur UniversityJaffe]]

|influences influenced =

|influenced awards = Bleuler Medal

|awards religion = Bleuler Medal

|religion signature = <!--(filename only)-->

|signature footnotes = = <!--(filename only)-->

Born'''Shahn inMajid''' (born 1960 in [[Patna]], Bihar, India '''Shahn Majid''') is an [[English people|English]] [[pure mathematician]] and [[theoretical physicist]], trained at [[Cambridge University]] and [[Harvard University]] and, since 2001, a Professorprofessor of Mathematicsmathematics at the School of Mathematical Sciences, [[Queen Mary, University of London]].

Majid is best known for his pioneering work on [[quantum group]]s where he introduced one of the two main known classes of these objects and worked on all aspects of their theory. His 1995 text booktextbook ''Foundations of Quantum Group Theory'' is a standard text still used by researchers today. He also pioneered a quantum groups approach to [[noncommutative geometry]] and the use of such methods as a route to [[quantum gravity]],<ref>{{citation|first=Shahn|last=Majid|title=Hopf algebras for physics at the Planck scale|year=1988|journal=Classical and Quantum Gravity|volume= 5|issue=12|pages=1587–1607|bibcode = 1988CQGra...5.1587M |doi = 10.1088/0264-9381/5/12/010 |citeseerx=10.1.1.125.6178|s2cid=250857702 }}</ref><ref>{{citation|first=S.|last=Majid|title=Physics for algebraists: non-commutative and non-cocommutative Hopf algebras by a bicrossproduct construction|journal= J. Algebra|volume= 130 |year=1990|pages= 17–64|doi=10.1016/0021-8693(90)90099-a|doi-access=free}}</ref>, leading in 1994 to the first model with testable predictions of [[quantum spacetime]]. He is also known for a range of results in algebra and category theory, notably for his theory of [[braided Hopf algebra]]s and for a new view of the [[octonions]]. Although many regard Majid as a pure mathematician, his motivation and early training was in theoretical physics, and pure mathematics merely represents a path in his lifelong search for the `'true nature of physical reality'.<ref>{{citation|last1=Majid|first1=S.|last1title=MajidPrinciple of Representation-Theoretic Self-Duality|journal=Physics Essays|volume=4|yearissue=19913|pages=395–405 |year=1991|bibcode=1991PhyEs...4..395M|doi=10.4006/1.3028923}}</ref><ref>[http://www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/~majid/About_Me.html See his personal bio page]</ref>.

In 2008, he edited and co-authored an ambitious book of essays ''On Space and Time'' along with [[Alain Connes]], [[Roger Penrose]], [[John Polkinghorne]], [[Michal Heller]] and Andrew Taylor, in which the authors aim to expose the frontier of scientific research on the small and large scale structure of the Universe to a general but scientifically- interested audience.

At age five, he moved with his family from India to the UK, where his father went on to become a noted orthopaedic surgeon and his mother a primary school teacher and a published poet. He grew up in Hampstead, London, where he now lives, is married to Konstanze Rietsch, a [[University of Vienna]] and [[MIT]] trained pure mathematician based at [[King's College London]], and has two children.

He did his B.A. and Part III diploma at the [[University of Cambridge]] following the [[MathematicsMathematical Tripos]] and based at [[Emmanuel College, Cambridge]]. In 1983, he was awarded a Herschel Smith Scholarship, which took him to [[Harvard]] whereUniversity. At Harvard, he was a tutor at [[Eliot House]], while engaged in his PhD jointly between the physics and pure mathematics departments, under [[Arthur Jaffe]] and [[Clifford Taubes]] respectively. Armed with his PhD in 1988, his first job was as a 1-year postdoc at the [[University of Swansea]], before moving on a Drapers Fellowship to [[Pembroke College, Cambridge]], where he remained a Fellow until his move to Queen Mary in 1999. The 10 years of research based in Cambridge University, [[DAMTP]] included two years as a visiting scholar back at Harvard and a variety of research fellowships including a [[Royal Society]] University Research Fellowship. In 1993, he was awarded a one-time Konrad Bleuler Medal by an international conference. He has been visiting professor at the [[Perimeter Institute]], [[Oxford University]], and Cambridge University, as well as principala principal organiser along with Alain Connes and Albert Schwarz of a 6-month programme on noncommutative geometry at the [[Isaac Newton Institute]] in 2006. In 2009, he was a [[Leverhulme Trust]] Senior Research Fellow.

==Scientific Worksworks==

Majid wrote several early papers before his more established PhD work.<ref>[http://www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/~majid/Research.html See a full statement of research with references]</ref><ref>[http://www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/~majid/Publications.html Full list of publications]</ref>. These included work on gauge fields as [[Fourier Transformtransform]] on the space of loops on a manifold and their quantisation as noncommutative geometry, a novel `'infinite spin' limit for handling infinities in quantum field theory and an infinitesimal explanation of quark confinement.

His 1988 PhD thesis introduced a `'bicrossproduct' type of [[quantum group]] at a time when few such objects were known. Half wayHalfway through his PhD research [[Vladimir Drinfeld]] and [[Michio Jimbo]] found another and more popular class of these objects, but the bicrossproduct ones have had a resurgence of interest in recent years. Majid rapidly established himself as a leading authority on all types of quantum groups and developed a distinctive [[Hopf algebra]]ic approach to them, including well-known results on the [[quantum double]] and a duality construction for a [[monoidal category]]. His 1998 lectures on the topic in the Mathematical Tripos of the University of Cambridge were published by the [[London Mathematical Society]].

In the 1990s, Majid introduced the theory of braided groups or [[braided Hopf algebra]]s as the true objects underlying <math>q</math>-deformations. He proved the main theorems in the field of `'transmutation' and `'bosonisation' and constructed the first and still main examples of the theory, including [[quantum plane]]s as an additive braided groups. Other well-known work includes a picture of the [[octonions]] as associative in a certain symmetric monoidal monoidal category.

Also in the 1990s he pioneered the theory and first models of noncommutative or [[quantum spacetime]]s. The 1994 Majid-Ruegg model in particular turned out to be testable by data now being collected by the [[Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope|GLAST]]-Fermi gamma ray space telescope. Whether his model is confirmed or not, the most important thing, according to Majid, is that unlike much of modern theoretical physics, it is testable. Recent works include theorems pointing to a new field of nonassociative geometry, noncommutative gravity and (2+1)-dimensional quantum gravity.

This revealing quote from page 112 ofMajid's ''On Space and Time'' was presented as reply to physicists who attack mathematicians while turning to maths books for structures to use in their theories, as if mathematics is a resource rather than part of the creative process. The subtle interplay between the creativity of pure mathematics and the fact-driven agenda of physics form the basis of a general philosophy of ''Relative Realism'' in which Majid argues that the nature of Physicalphysical Realityreality is not fundamentally different from the way that topics in Purepure Mathematicsmathematics are on the one hand created by definitions and on the other hand `'out there' waiting to be invented. Majid gives the more everyday example of the way that the reality experienced in a game of chess is created by the rules of chess and the ''choice'' to abide by them while at the same time, on another level, the rules of chess were themselves a reality waiting to be discovered by those seeking to invent board games. The general picture leads to a dualism between experiment and theory or `'principle of representation-theoretic self-duality' in which Majid argues that `'the search for the ultimate theory of physics is the search for self-dual structures in a self-dual category'. Although not accepted by professional philosophers of science, the philosophy has provided a point of view behind most of his research work.<ref>See Chapter 2 of ''On Space and Time''</ref>

Numerous research publications and review articles, and the following three books:

*{{citation |first last1=Majid | first1=S. |last=Majid| title=FoundationsA ofquantum Quantumgroups Groupprimer Theory| publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] | series=London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series | isbn=978-0-521-6486801041-42 | year=19952002 &| volume=292| bibcode=2002qgp..book.....M 2000}}

*[http://www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/~majid Shahn Majid's Academic Home Page]

*[httphttps://arxiv.org/find/all/1/all:+AND+Shahn+Majid/0/1/0/all/0/1 Partial list of downloadable research articles]

*[http://www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/~majid/Public/Entries/2009/3/18_Entry_1_files/CamFestFInal.pdf Talk at the 2009 Cambridge Science Festival about the origin of time]

*[http://amapedia.amazon.com/view/On+Space+and+Time/id=898496/ref=dp_amapedia_3 Amapaedia entry for ''On Space and Time'']

*[http[://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Bleuler :Konrad Bleuler|German article about Konrad Bleuler]]