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Maths and the bomb: Sir Michael Atiyah at 80

MAY 20, 2009
Physics Today

Times Online : When, five years ago, he shared the £480,000 Abel Prize, the equivalent of a Nobel prize in the world of mathematics, Sir Michael Atiyah might have listened to his wife’s urgings to put his feet up and settle into a comfortable life. But that would not have been his style. “Some mathematicians retire,” he concedes with a smile. “I don’t think I have.”

To celebrate Sir Michael’s 80th birthday and a life dedicated to science and political activism, the University of Edinburgh hosted a three-day conference last month on his contribution to geometry and physics.

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