Person: Patodi, Vijay Kumar

Vijay Patodi was an Indian mathematician who made important contributions to differential geometry and topology.

After obtaining his B.Sc. degree from Vikram University, Patodi moved to Banares Hindu University were he studied for his Master's Degree in Mathematics.
This was awarded in 1966 and Patodi then spent a year at the Centre for Advanced Study at the University of Bombay.
In 1967 Patodi joined the School of Mathematics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay and he was to remain on the staff there until his death at the distressingly early age of 31.
Mathematical fame for Patodi came early in his career with papers of great importance coming for the work of his Ph.D. His doctoral thesis, Heat equation and the index of elliptic operators, was supervised by M S Narasimhan and S Ramanan and the degree was awarded by the University of Bombay in 1971.
Patodi's first contribution was to prove that such a fantastic cancellation of higher derivatives did indeed take place.
The years 1971 to 1973 were ones which Patodi spent on leave at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
On his return to Bombay and the Tata Institute in 1973 Patodi was promoted to associate professor.
Patodi's publications, in addition to the two mentioned above, include a number of joint ones with Atiyah and Singer.

Born 12 March 1945, Guna, Madhya Pradesh, India. Died 21 December 1976, Bombay, India.

View full biography at MacTutor

Origin India

Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0!

O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive