Raoul Bott: Collected Papers

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xix

   PDF

2. Biographies and Commentaries

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Photographs

      • Loring W. Tu

      Pages 3-22

   3. Curriculum Vitae

      • Raoul Bott, Loring W. Tu

      Pages 23-25

   4. Obituary: Raoul Harry Bott, FRS, 1923–2005

      • Sri Michael Atiyah

      Pages 27-39

   5. The Life and Works of Raoul Bott

      • Loring W. Tu

      Pages 41-59

   6. Remembering Raoul Bott (1923–2005)

      • Loring W. Tu

      Pages 61-81

   7. Memories of Raoul Bott

      • Dennis Sullivan

      Pages 83-84

   8. Memories of Raoul Bott

      • Thomas G. Goodwillie

      Pages 85-86

   9. Stable Bundles (Commentary on [95])

      • Lisa Jeffrey

      Pages 87-87

   10. On E. Verlinde’s Formula (Commentary on [96])

       • Lisa Jeffrey

       Pages 89-90

   11. Memories of Raoul Bott (Commentary on [96])

       • András Szenes

       Pages 91-91

   12. On Raoul Bott’s “On Invariants of Manifold” (Commentary on [106], [107])

       • Dror Bar-Natan

       Pages 93-94

   13. Configuration Space Integrals: Bridging Physics, Geometry, and Topology of Knots and Links (Commentary on [106], [108], [109])

       • Ismar Volić

       Pages 95-100

   14. Integral Invariants of 3-Manifolds (Commentary on [111], [114])

       • Alberto S. Cattaneo

       Pages 101-102

   15. Equivariant Characteristic Classes (Commentary on [116])

       • Loring W. Tu

       Pages 103-105

   16. On the Genesis of the Woods Hole Fixed Point Theorem (Commentary on [118], [119], [123], [124])

       • Loring W. Tu

       Pages 107-115

   17. Commentary on “Surjectivity for Hamiltonian Loop Group Spaces” [120]

       • Jonathan Weitsman

       Pages 117-120

   18. Woods Hole (Commentary on [124])

       • Michael Atiyah

       Pages 121-122

3. Papers of Raoul Bott Since 1991

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 123-123

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This book is the fifth and final volume of Raoul Bott’s Collected Papers. It collects all of Bott’s published articles since 1991 as well as some articles published earlier but missing in the earlier volumes. The volume also contains interviews with Raoul Bott, several of his previously unpublished speeches, commentaries by his collaborators such as Alberto Cattaneo and Jonathan Weitsman on their joint articles with Bott, Michael Atiyah’s obituary of Raoul Bott, Loring Tu’s authorized biography of Raoul Bott, and reminiscences of Raoul Bott by his friends, students, colleagues, and collaborators, among them Stephen Smale, David Mumford, Arthur Jaffe, Shing-Tung Yau, and Loring Tu. The mathematical articles, many inspired by physics, encompass stable vector bundles, knot and manifold invariants, equivariant cohomology, and loop spaces. The nonmathematical contributions give a sense of Bott’s approach to mathematics, style, personality, zest for life, and humanity. In one ofthe articles, from the vantage point of his later years, Raoul Bott gives a tour-de-force historical account of one of his greatest achievements, the Bott periodicity theorem. A large number of the articles originally appeared in hard-to-find conference proceedings or journals. This volume makes them all easily accessible. 
It also features a collection of photographs giving a panoramic view of Raoul Bott's life and his interaction with other mathematicians.

• knot invariants
• manifolds invariants
• mathematical physics
• topology
• stable bundles
• configuration spaces
• equivariant cohomology

• Department of Mathematics, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA

  Loring W. Tu

​Loring W. Tu was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and grew up in Taiwan, Canada, and the United States. He attended McGill University and Princeton University as an undergraduate, and obtained his Ph.D. from Harvard University under the supervision of Phillip A. Griths. He has taught at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and at Johns Hopkins University, and is currently Professor of Mathematics at Tufts University in Massachusetts.An algebraic geometer by training, he has done research at the interface of algebraic geometry, topology, and differential geometry, including Hodge theory, degeneracy loci, moduli spaces of vector bundles, and equivariant cohomology. He is the coauthor with Raoul Bott of Differential Forms in Algebraic Topology and the author of "An Introduction to Manifolds and Differential Geometry: Connections, Curvature, and Characteristic Classes".

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