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Tadashi Tokieda

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Japanese mathematician
Tadashi Tokieda
Tokieda in 2013
Born1968 (age 55–56)
Tokyo, Japan
EducationSophia University
University of Oxford
Princeton University
AwardsPaul R. Halmos–Lester R. Ford Award (2014)
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsPrinceton University
Cambridge University
Stanford University
ThesisNull Sets of Symplectic Capacity
Doctoral advisorWilliam Browder

Tadashi Tokieda (Japanese: 時枝正; born 1968) is a Japanese mathematician, working in mathematics and physics. He is a professor of mathematics at Stanford University; previously he was a fellow and Director of Studies of Mathematics at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He is also very active in inventing, collecting, and studying toys that uniquely reveal and explore real-world surprises of mathematics and physics. In comparison with most mathematicians, he had an unusual path in life: he started as a painter, and then became a classical philologist, before switching to mathematics. Tokieda is known for his outstanding public lectures where he shows mathematical phenomena and teaches how to use mathematical concepts in a simple, entertaining and beautiful way.

Life and career

Tokieda was born in Tokyo and initially intended to be a painter. He then studied at Lycée Sainte-Marie Grand Lebrun in France as a classical philologist. According to his personal homepage, he taught himself basic mathematics from Russian collections of problems.

He is a 1989 classics graduate from Sophia University in Tokyo and has a 1991 bachelor's degree from Oxford in mathematics (where he studied as a British Council Fellow). He obtained his PhD at Princeton in 1996 under the supervision of William Browder.

Tokieda joined the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign as a J. L. Doob Research Assistant Professor for the 1997 academic year.

He has been involved in the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences since its beginning in 2003.

In 2004, he was elected a Fellow of Trinity Hall, where he became the Director of Studies in Mathematics and the Stephan and Thomas Körner Fellow.

He was the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Fellow in 2013–2014 at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

In the academic year 2015–2016 he was the Poincaré Distinguished Visiting Professor at Stanford.

Besides his native language Japanese, he is also fluent in French and English. In addition, he knows ancient Greek, Latin, classical Chinese, Finnish, Spanish, and Russian. When asked how many languages he knows, he answered "I don't really know. It's like asking how many friends you have." So far he has lived in eight countries.

In March 2020, Tokieda was interviewed on The Joy of X, Steven Strogatz's podcast for Quanta Magazine.

Selected publications

References

  1. "Paul R. Halmos - Lester R. Ford Awards". Maa.org.
  2. ^ 数学まなびはじめ 第３集 [Introduction to Mathematics Learning Volume 3] (in Japanese). Tōkyō: Nihon Hyōronsha. 23 July 2015. pp. 190–203. ISBN 978-4-535-78592-2.
  3. Tokieda, Tadashi (July 11, 2022). "An Educated Adult". Numberphile (Interview). Interviewed by Brady Haran. California. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  4. "Tadashi Tokieda - The Mathematics Genealogy Project". University of North Dakota.
  5. "Math Times - Fall 1997" (PDF). Illinois.edu.
  6. "homepage". Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Archived from the original on 2016-06-05.
  7. "Tadashi Tokieda's bio". Cam.ac.uk.
  8. "Tadashi Tokieda". Harvard.edu. 25 September 2013.
  9. "homepage". Stanford.edu.
  10. "bio". "Modern Mathematics" International summer school for students.
  11. Herzberg, Nathaniel (9 June 2023). "直感の逆を突き、驚かせ、人の未知への欲求を刺激する 仏紙が唸る「数学を世間に広める能力で、時枝正にかなう者はいない」" [He goes against intuition, surprises people, and stimulates their desire for the unknown. A French newspaper raves: "No one can match Tokieda Tadashi in his ability to popularize mathematics to the public."]. Courrier Japon (in Japanese). Retrieved October 21, 2024. 時枝はいったい何ヵ国語に通じているのだろうか。 「よくわからないんです。言ってみれば、友達が何人いるのかを問われるようなものです。そんな質問は普通しませんよね」 [Just how many languages does Tokieda know? "I don't really know. It's like asking how many friends you have. No one normally asks that question."]
  12. Stony Brook University (27 October 2016). "Five Questions With Tadashi Tokieda" – via YouTube.
  13. "Tadashi Tokieda's Special Kind of Magic". Quanta Magazine. 10 March 2020. Retrieved 11 March 2020.

External links

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