David Mumford

David Bryant Mumford (born 11 June 1937) is an

American mathematician known for his work in David Mumford
algebraic geometry and then for research into vision
and pattern theory. He won the Fields Medal and was a
MacArthur Fellow. In 2010 he was awarded the
National Medal of Science. He is currently a
University Professor Emeritus in the Division of
Applied Mathematics at Brown University.

Early life David Mumford in 2010

Born 11 June 1937
Mumford was born in Worth, West Sussex in England, Worth, West Sussex, England
of an English father and American mother. His father Nationality American
William started an experimental school in Tanzania
Alma mater Harvard University
and worked for the then newly created United
Nations.[3] Known for Algebraic geometry
Mumford surface
He attended Phillips Exeter Academy, where he Deligne-Mumford stacks
received a Westinghouse Science Talent Search prize Mumford–Shah functional[1]
for his relay-based computer project.[4][5] Mumford Awards Putnam Fellow (1955, 1956)
then went to Harvard University, where he became a Sloan Fellowship (1962)
student of Oscar Zariski. At Harvard, he became a Fields Medal (1974)
Putnam Fellow in 1955 and 1956.[6] He completed his MacArthur Fellowship (1987)
PhD in 1961, with a thesis entitled Existence of the Shaw Prize (2006)
moduli scheme for curves of any genus. He married Steele Prize (2007)
Erika Mumford (1935-1988), an author and poet, in Wolf Prize (2008)
1959 and they had four children, Stephen, Peter, Longuet-Higgins Prize (2005,
Jeremy, and Suchitra. He currently has seven 2009)
grandchildren. National Medal of Science
(2010)
BBVA Foundation Frontiers of
Work in algebraic geometry Knowledge Award (2012)
Honours Hong Kong University of
Mumford's work in geometry combined traditional
Science and Technology
geometric insights with the latest algebraic techniques. (Honoris Causa)[2]
He published on moduli spaces, with a theory summed
up in his book Geometric Invariant Theory, on the Scientific career

equations defining an abelian variety, and on algebraic Fields Mathematics

surfaces. Institutions Brown University
Harvard University
His books Abelian Varieties (with C. P. Ramanujam) Doctoral Oscar Zariski
and Curves on an Algebraic Surface combined the old advisor
and new theories. His lecture notes on scheme theory Doctoral Avner Ash
circulated for years in unpublished form, at a time students Henri Gillet
when they were, beside the treatise Éléments de Tadao Oda
géométrie algébrique, the only accessible introduction. Emma Previato
They are now available as The Red Book of Varieties Malka Schaps
and Schemes (ISBN 3-540-63293-X). Michael Stillman
Jonathan Wahl
Other work that was less thoroughly written up were
Song-Chun Zhu
lectures on varieties defined by quadrics, and a study
of Goro Shimura's papers from the 1960s.

Mumford's research did much to revive the classical theory of theta functions, by showing that its
algebraic content was large, and enough to support the main parts of the theory by reference to finite
analogues of the Heisenberg group. This work on the equations defining abelian varieties appeared in
1966–7. He published some further books of lectures on the theory.

He also is one of the founders of the toroidal embedding theory; and sought to apply the theory to
Gröbner basis techniques, through students who worked in algebraic computation.

Work on pathologies in algebraic geometry

In a sequence of four papers published in the American Journal of Mathematics between 1961 and 1975,
Mumford explored pathological behavior in algebraic geometry, that is, phenomena that would not arise
if the world of algebraic geometry were as well-behaved as one might expect from looking at the simplest
examples. These pathologies fall into two types: (a) bad behavior in characteristic p and (b) bad behavior
in moduli spaces.

Characteristic-p pathologies
Mumford's philosophy in characteristic p was as follows:

A nonsingular characteristic p variety is analogous to a general non-Kähler complex

manifold; in particular, a projective embedding of such a variety is not as strong as a Kähler
metric on a complex manifold, and the Hodge–Lefschetz–Dolbeault theorems on sheaf
cohomology break down in every possible way.

In the first Pathologies paper, Mumford finds an everywhere regular differential form on a smooth
projective surface that is not closed, and shows that Hodge symmetry fails for classical Enriques surfaces
in characteristic two. This second example is developed further in Mumford's third paper on classification
of surfaces in characteristic p (written in collaboration with E. Bombieri). This pathology can now be
explained in terms of the Picard scheme of the surface, and in particular, its failure to be a reduced
scheme, which is a theme developed in Mumford's book "Lectures on Curves on an Algebraic Surface".
Worse pathologies related to p-torsion in crystalline cohomology were explored by Luc Illusie (Ann. Sci.
Ec. Norm. Sup. (4) 12 (1979), 501–661).
In the second Pathologies paper, Mumford gives a simple example of a surface in characteristic p where
the geometric genus is non-zero, but the second Betti number is equal to the rank of the Néron–Severi
group. Further such examples arise in Zariski surface theory. He also conjectures that the Kodaira
vanishing theorem is false for surfaces in characteristic p. In the third paper, he gives an example of a
normal surface for which Kodaira vanishing fails. The first example of a smooth surface for which
Kodaira vanishing fails was given by Michel Raynaud in 1978.

Pathologies of moduli spaces

In the second Pathologies paper, Mumford finds that the Hilbert scheme parametrizing space curves of
degree 14 and genus 24 has a multiple component. In the fourth Pathologies paper, he finds reduced and
irreducible complete curves which are not specializations of non-singular curves.

These sorts of pathologies were considered to be fairly scarce when they first appeared. But Ravi Vakil
showed in his paper "Murphy's law in algebraic geometry" has shown that Hilbert schemes of nice
geometric objects can be arbitrarily "bad", with unlimited numbers of components and with arbitrarily
large multiplicities (Invent. Math. 164 (2006), 569–590).

Classification of surfaces
In three papers written between 1969 and 1976 (the last two in collaboration with Enrico Bombieri),
Mumford extended the Enriques–Kodaira classification of smooth projective surfaces from the case of
the complex ground field to the case of an algebraically closed ground field of characteristic p. The final
answer turns out to be essentially the same as the answer in the complex case (though the methods
employed are sometimes quite different), once two important adjustments are made. The first is that one
may get "non-classical" surfaces, which come about when p-torsion in the Picard scheme degenerates to a
non-reduced group scheme. The second is the possibility of obtaining quasi-elliptic surfaces in
characteristics two and three. These are surfaces fibred over a curve where the general fibre is a curve of
arithmetic genus one with a cusp.

Once these adjustments are made, the surfaces are divided into four classes by their Kodaira dimension,
as in the complex case. The four classes are: a) Kodaira dimension minus infinity. These are the ruled
surfaces. b) Kodaira dimension 0. These are the K3 surfaces, abelian surfaces, hyperelliptic and quasi-
hyperelliptic surfaces, and Enriques surfaces. There are classical and non-classical examples in the last
two Kodaira dimension zero cases. c) Kodaira dimension 1. These are the elliptic and quasi-elliptic
surfaces not contained in the last two groups. d) Kodaira dimension 2. These are the surfaces of general
type.

Awards and honors

Mumford was awarded a Fields Medal in 1974. He was a MacArthur Fellow from 1987 to 1992. He won
the Shaw Prize in 2006. In 2007 he was awarded the Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition by the
American Mathematical Society. In 2008 he was awarded the Wolf Prize; on receiving the prize in
Jerusalem from Shimon Peres, Mumford announced that he was donating half of the prize money to
Birzeit University in the Palestinian territories and half to Gisha (https://web.archive.org/web/201107261
04951/http://www.gisha.org/index.php?intLanguage=2&intSiteSN=137&intItem
Id=107), an Israeli organization that promotes the right to freedom of movement
of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.[7][8] He also served on the Mathematical
Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize in 2009 and 2010. In 2010 he was awarded the
National Medal of Science.[9] In 2012 he became a fellow of the American
Mathematical Society.[10]

There is a long list of awards and honors besides the above, including

Westinghouse Science Talent Search finalist, 1953.

David Mumford in
Junior Fellow at Harvard from 1958 to 1961.
1975
Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1975.
Honorary Fellow from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in
1978.
Honorary D. Sc. from the University of Warwick in 1983.
Foreign Member of Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome, in 1991.
Honorary Member of London Mathematical Society in 1995.
Elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1997.[11]
Honorary D. Sc. from Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 2000.[12]
Honorary D. Sc. from Rockefeller University in 2001.
Longuet-Higgins Prize in 2005 and 2009.
Foreign Member of The Royal Society in 2008.
Foreign Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.[13]
Honorary Doctorate from Brown University in 2011.[14]
2012 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Basic Sciences category
(jointly with Ingrid Daubechies).
Honoris Causa University of Hyderabad, India 2012
He was elected President of the International Mathematical Union in 1995 and served from 1995 to 1999.

See also
Castelnuovo–Mumford regularity
Mumford's compactness theorem
Haboush's theorem
Hilbert–Mumford criterion
Stable mapping class group
Mumford-Tate group
Mumford measure
Mumford vanishing theorem
Theta representation
Manin–Mumford conjecture
Horrocks–Mumford bundle
Deligne–Mumford moduli space of stable curves
Algebraic stack
Moduli scheme
 Prym varieties
Stable maps
Mumford–Shah energy functional

Notes
1. Mumford, David; Shah, Jayant (1989). "Optimal Approximations by Piecewise Smooth
Functions and Associated Variational Problems" (https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/
1/3637121/Mumford_OptimalApproxPiece.pdf?sequence=1) (PDF). Comm. Pure Appl.
Math. XLII (5): 577–685. doi:10.1002/cpa.3160420503 (https://doi.org/10.1002%2Fcpa.3160
420503).
2. "Nvidia chief Jensen Huang, film star Tony Leung to get honorary doctorates in Hong Kong"
(https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3284376/nvidia-chief-jensen-huang-
visit-hong-kong-receive-honorary-doctorate-along-film-star-tony-leung). South China
Morning Post. 30 October 2024.
3. Fields Medallists' Lectures, World Scientific Series in 20th Century Mathematics, Vol 5 (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=q6eSjV-0egUC&pg=PA225). World Scientific. 1997. p. 225.
ISBN 978-9810231170.
4. "Autobiography of David Mumford", The Shaw Prize, 2006 (https://www.shawprize.org/prize
s-and-laureates/mathematical-sciences/2006/autobiography-of-david-mumford)
5. David B. Mumford, "How a Computer Works", Radio-Electronics, February 1955, p. 58 (http
s://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Consumer/Archive-Radio-Electronics-IDX/IDX/50s/1955/
Radio-Electronics-1955-02-OCR-Page-0056.pdf), 59 (https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-
Consumer/Archive-Radio-Electronics-IDX/IDX/50s/1955/Radio-Electronics-1955-02-OCR-P
age-0057.pdf), 60 (https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Consumer/Archive-Radio-Electroni
cs-IDX/IDX/50s/1955/Radio-Electronics-1955-02-OCR-Page-0058.pdf)
6. "Putnam Competition Individual and Team Winners" (http://www.maa.org/programs/maa-aw
ards/putnam-competition-individual-and-team-winners). Mathematical Association of
America. Retrieved 10 December 2021.
7. "U.S. prof. gives Israeli prize money to Palestinian university – Haaretz – Israel News" (http
s://www.haaretz.com/1.4984908). Haaretz. 26 May 2008. Retrieved 26 May 2008.
8. Mumford, David (September 2008). "The Wolf Prize and Supporting Palestinian Education"
(https://www.ams.org/notices/200808/200808-full-issue.pdf) (PDF). Notices of the American
Mathematical Society. 55 (8). American Mathematical Society: 919. ISSN 0002-9920 (http
s://search.worldcat.org/issn/0002-9920).
9. "Mathematician David Mumford to receive National Medal of Science" (https://news.brown.e
du/pressreleases/2010/10/mumford). Brown University. 15 October 2010. Retrieved
25 October 2010.
10. List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society (https://www.ams.org/profession/fellow
s-list), retrieved 2013-02-10.
11. "APS Member History" (https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=David+Mumf
ord&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanc
ed). search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 8 December 2021.
12. NTNU's list of honorary doctors (https://www.ntnu.edu/phd/honorary-doctors)
13. "Gruppe 1: Matematiske fag" (https://web.archive.org/web/20131110152102/http://www.dnv
a.no/c26849/artikkel/vis.html?tid=40116) (in Norwegian). Norwegian Academy of Science
and Letters. Archived from the original (http://www.dnva.no/c26849/artikkel/vis.html?tid=401
16) on 10 November 2013. Retrieved 7 October 2010.
14. "Commencement 2011: Honorary degrees" (https://web.archive.org/web/20120315122226/h
ttp://www.browndailyherald.com/commencement-2011-honorary-degrees-1.2579444). 29
May 2011. Archived from the original (http://www.browndailyherald.com/commencement-20
11-honorary-degrees-1.2579444) on 15 March 2012. Retrieved 29 May 2011.

Publications
Lectures on Curves on Algebraic Surfaces (with George Bergman), Princeton University
Press, 1964.
Geometric Invariant Theory, Springer-Verlag, 1965 – 2nd edition, with J. Fogarty, 1982; 3rd
enlarged edition, with F. Kirwan and J. Fogarty, 1994.
Mumford, David (1999) [1967], The Red Book of Varieties and Schemes, Lecture Notes in
Mathematics, vol. 1358 (expanded, Includes Michigan Lectures (1974) on Curves and their
Jacobians ed.), Berlin, New York: Springer-Verlag, doi:10.1007/b62130 (https://doi.org/10.10
07%2Fb62130), ISBN 978-3-540-63293-1, MR 1748380 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathsc
inet-getitem?mr=1748380)
Abelian Varieties, Oxford University Press, 1st edition 1970; 2nd edition 1974.
Six Appendices to Algebraic Surfaces by Oscar Zariski – 2nd edition, Springer-Verlag, 1971.
Toroidal Embeddings I (with G. Kempf, F. Knudsen and B. Saint-Donat), Lecture Notes in
Mathematics #339, Springer-Verlag 1973.
Curves and their Jacobians , University of Michigan Press, 1975.
Smooth Compactification of Locally Symmetric Varieties (with A. Ash, M. Rapoport and Y.
Tai, Math. Sci. Press, 1975)
Algebraic Geometry I: Complex Projective Varieties, Springer-Verlag New York, 1975.
Tata Lectures on Theta (with C. Musili, M. Nori, P. Norman, E. Previato and M. Stillman),
Birkhäuser-Boston, Part I 1982, Part II 1983, Part III 1991.
Filtering, Segmentation and Depth (with M. Nitzberg and T. Shiota), Lecture Notes in
Computer Science #662, 1993.
Two and Three Dimensional Pattern of the Face (with P. Giblin, G. Gordon, P. Hallinan and
A. Yuille), AKPeters, 1999.
Mumford, David; Series, Caroline; Wright, David (2002), Indra's Pearls: The Vision of Felix
Klein (http://klein.math.okstate.edu/IndrasPearls/), Cambridge University Press,
doi:10.1017/CBO9781107050051.024 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FCBO9781107050051.02
4), ISBN 978-0-521-35253-6, MR 1913879 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?
mr=1913879) Indra's Pearls: The Vision of Felix Klein
Selected Papers on the Classification of Varieties and Moduli Spaces, Springer-Verlag,
2004.
Mumford, David (2010), Selected papers, Volume II. On algebraic geometry, including
correspondence with Grothendieck, New York: Springer, ISBN 978-0-387-72491-1,
MR 2741810 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=2741810)
Mumford, David; Desolneux, Agnès (2010), Pattern Theory: The Stochastic Analysis of
Real-World Signals, A K Peters/CRC Press, ISBN 978-1568815794, MR 2723182 (https://m
athscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=2723182)
Mumford, David; Oda, Tadao (2015), Algebraic geometry. II. (http://bookstore.ams.org/hin-7
0), Texts and Readings in Mathematics, vol. 73, New Delhi: Hindustan Book Agency,
 ISBN 978-93-80250-80-9, MR 3443857 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=
3443857)

External links
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "David Mumford" (https://mathshistory.st-andrew
s.ac.uk/Biographies/Mumford.html), MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of
St Andrews
David Mumford (https://mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=18755) at the Mathematics Genealogy
Project
Mumford's page at Brown University (http://www.dam.brown.edu/people/mumford/)

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