by Alain Connes and Joseph Kouneiher
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Sir Michael Atiyah was considered one of the world’s foremost
mathematicians. He is best known for his work in algebraic topology
and the codevelopment of a branch of mathematics called topological
Some people may sit back and say, I want to solve this problem and they sit down and say, “How do I solve this problem?” I don’t. I just move around in the mathematical waters, thinking about things, being curious, interested, talking to people, stirring up ideas; things emerge and I follow them up. Or I see something which connects up with something else I know about, and I try to put them together and things develop. I have practically never started off with any idea of what I’m going to be doing or where it’s going to go. I’m interested in mathematics; I talk, I learn, I discuss and then interesting questions simply emerge. I have never started off with a particular goal, except the goal of understanding mathematics.
We could describe Atiyah’s journey in mathematics by saying he spent the first half of his career connecting mathematics to mathematics and the second half connecting mathematics to physics.
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