RefNo | EC/1990/19 |
Level | Item |
Title | Jones, Vaughan Frederick Randal: certificate of election to the Royal Society |
Date | 1989 |
Description | Citation typed |
Citation | His work is characterized by a beautiful interplay between algebra, analysis, topology, and mathematical physics. His first work was a complete classification of the action of finite groups on von Neumann algebras of type II. He went on to define an "index" for a subfactor of a II1 factor, and found its possible values, most strikingly the unsuspected discrete series 4 cos2pi/n. This work has profoundly changed the perspective of its whole field. It also produced a completely new family of representations of the braid groups, and Jones showed how these gave a new polynomial invariant for knots. On one side this transformed knot theory, while in another direction it opened up a new field embracing statistical mechanics, conformal quantum field theory, and the quantization of Lie groups. Jones's most recent work concerns exact solutions in two-dimensional statistical mechanics. |
AccessStatus | Closed |
Fellows associated with this archive
Code | PersonName | Dates |
NA1613 | Jones; Vaughan Frederick Randal (1952 - 2020) | 1952 - 2020 |