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David B. A. Epstein

David Bernard Alper Epstein FRS (born 1937[1]) is a mathematician known for his work in hyperbolic geometry, 3-manifolds, and group theory, amongst other fields. He co-founded the University of Warwick mathematics department with Christopher Zeeman and is founding editor of the journal Experimental Mathematics.

Not to be confused with David Eppstein.

David Epstein

David Bernard Alper Epstein

1937 (age 86–87)

University of Cambridge (PhD)

Rona

FRS (2004)

University of Warwick

Three Dimensional Manifolds (1960)

Christopher Zeeman

Elmer Rees Brian Bowditch

homepages.warwick.ac.uk/~masbab

Higher education and early career[edit]

In 1954, Epstein came to the UK after completing his bachelor's degree in mathematics in South Africa. Having received the exemption for Mathematical Tripos part I at the University of Cambridge, he completed Mathematical Tripos part II in 1955 and Mathematical Tripos part III in 1957. He completed his Ph.D. on the topic of three-dimensional manifolds under the supervision of Christopher Zeeman in 1960. He then travelled to Princeton University, where he spent one year attending the lectures of Norman Steenrod on cohomology operations, making notes and revisions to them, later published as a book by the Princeton University Press in 1962.[2]


In 1961, Epstein moved to the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey. He returned to the UK in 1962 to become a research fellow of the newly founded Churchill College, Cambridge. In 1964, he moved to the Mathematics Institute of the University of Warwick to take up a Readership position there. He was the first academic at the University of Warwick to move into local accommodation, though many professors were appointed before him.

Awards and honours[edit]

Epstein was awarded the Senior Berwick Prize by the London Mathematical Society in 1988.[3] In 2004 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.[3][4] In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.[5][6][7]

D.B.A. Epstein, Projective planes in 3-manifolds. (3) 11 1961 469–484.

Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society

D.B.A. Epstein and R.L.E. Schwarzenberger, Imbeddings of real projective spaces. (2) 76 1962 180–184.

Annals of Mathematics

D.B.A. Epstein, Steenrod operations in homological algebra. 1 1966 152–208.

Inventiones Mathematicae

D.B.A. Epstein, Periodic flows on three-manifolds. (2) 95 1972 66–82.

Annals of Mathematics

D.B.A. Epstein and E. Vogt, A counterexample to the periodic orbit conjecture in codimension 3. (2) 108 (1978), no. 3, 539–552.

Annals of Mathematics

D.B.A. Epstein and A. Marden, Convex hulls in hyperbolic space, a theorem of Sullivan, and measured pleated surfaces. Analytical and geometric aspects of hyperbolic space (Coventry/Durham, 1984), 113–253, London Math. Soc. Lecture Note Ser., 111, , Cambridge, 1987.

Cambridge University Press

D.B.A. Epstein and R.C. Penner, Euclidean decompositions of noncompact hyperbolic manifolds. 27 (1988), no. 1, 67–80.

Journal of Differential Geometry

Epstein, David B. A.; Cannon, James W.; Holt, Derek F.; Levy, Silvio V. F.; Paterson, Michael S.; Thurston, William P. . Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Boston, MA, 1992. xii+330 pp. ISBN 0-86720-244-0[8]

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