Compared to Isaac Newton .. Death of mathematician Michael Attieh

The British mathematician Michael Attieh, a British knight and Fields, widely regarded as the Nobel Prize for athletes, died days ago at the age of 89.

Attiyah was born on April 22, 1929 in London to a Christian Lebanese father named Edward Attieh and a Scottish mother named Jane Levines. He has three brothers, Patrick, Joe and Salma.

Attieh's father emigrated from Lebanon to Britain in the 1920s. From there he left with his wife in the 1930s to Egypt and Sudan where Michael Attieh spent his childhood in Khartoum and studied primary. He then attended high school at Victoria College in Alexandria, Egypt, and usually to Britain to graduate from university Trinity in Cambridge in 1954.

Attiyah was said to be perhaps the most important mathematician in the second half of the 20th century, for he was able to prove many great theories and compare Isaac Newton to his contributions to our understanding of the universe, according to an article in the Times.

Intense and complex ideas
The paper says Attieh's ideas were "prolific and complex, balanced on the edge of the knife between genius and madness," although he remained largely beside the genius, according to the article.

Atia's creativity was expressed by the "index theorem" theory he developed with his colleague Isador Singer, who was described by many mathematicians as "the theory of the century" and was one of the main reasons for obtaining the Fields Medal which is widely considered As a Nobel Prize for mathematicians.

Attieh received the highest honors in mathematics, the Fields Medal in 1966, the Abel Award in 2004, and many of his colleagues received Fieldes medals for discoveries related to his work.

In 1990, Attieh became president of the Royal Society and director of the Isaac Newton Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge, a national institute of mathematics research.

In fact, he combines mathematics and physics in a way that reminds us of Isaac Newton, according to the article, which he describes as a "pure mathematician" while complaining that "the problem with working with physicists is that once the problem is solved, you are told that this problem is not the real problem" .

From this point on, most of Attia 's research was influenced by physics, much of it due to intense discussions with physicist Edward Witten at Princeton University. In particular, Whiten urged him to take quantum theory more seriously, and eventually became one of the founders of so-called quantum mathematics.

Attia had experience in the field of public service and scientific societies, where he participated in the Reform Committee for Teaching Mathematics in Schools, chaired the London Mathematical Society, the Mathematics Association, was Vice President of the Royal Society and an active member of the International Mathematics Union. These activities gave him the knighthood he received in 1983, and he received the Order of Merit in 1992.

Quiet retirement
Attieh retired from Trinity in 1997 and went to live in Edinburgh, where his wife Lilly Brown, who was also a mathematician, grew up in 1955 and had three children, one of whom died in a climbing accident in 2002, while his wife, She was suffering from dementia, in 2017.

The Times says that after a quiet retirement, he returned to mathematics and became an emeritus professor at the University of Edinburgh. Although he continued to work and publish research, that sharp balance between genius and insanity tended toward the latter, but this resemblance to madness - which he described as "obsession" - was part of his brilliance and remained until the end an energy ball that could not be stopped.

Atia died on January 11, 2019, aged 89 after suffering from breathing difficulties.