Photo: George Bergman / CC BY-SA 4.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
Born on December 19, 1943 in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, Richard S. Hamilton was a mathematician and university teacher. Richard S. Hamilton died on September 29, 2024, aged 80. Education on record includes Walnut Hills High School and Princeton University. Listed accolades include Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry (1996), Shaw Prize (2011), Clay Research Award (2003) and 2 more. Credited works include Ricci flow.
My Take
Richard Hamilton is one of those mathematicians whose name you might not immediately recognize, but whose work quietly reshaped the entire landscape of geometry. He invented Ricci flow — this beautifully intuitive idea of letting a curved space "smooth itself out" over time, like heat diffusing through metal — and spent decades developing it into a serious analytical machine. When Perelman used that machine to finally crack the Poincaré Conjecture, one of the biggest unsolved problems in all of mathematics, Hamilton was the intellectual foundation the whole thing rested on. He won the Veblen Prize, the Clay Research Award, the Shaw Prize, and the Steele Prize, and honestly every one of those was deserved. Princeton trained him, Columbia kept him, and the math world is genuinely poorer for losing him in September 2024.
This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Richard S. Hamilton
- Name (Japanese)
- リチャード・S・ハミルトン
- Reading
- りちゃーど・S・はみるとん
- Born
- December 19, 1943 – September 29, 2024
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Sagittarius / Goat
- Origin
- Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
- Occupation
- mathematician / university teacher
2. Background
- High school
- Walnut Hills High School
- University
- Princeton University
Awards & achievements
- 1996 Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry
- 2011 Shaw Prize
- 2003 Clay Research Award
- 2011 The Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences
- 2009 Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research
3. Works & records
Filmography / notable works
| Category | Title |
|---|---|
| Notable work | Ricci flow |
4. Links
5. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.
Frequently asked questions
When was Richard S. Hamilton born?
Born December 19, 1943.
When did Richard S. Hamilton die?
Died September 29, 2024, aged 80.
Where was Richard S. Hamilton from?
Richard S. Hamilton was from Cincinnati, Ohio, United States.
What did Richard S. Hamilton do?
Richard S. Hamilton worked as mathematician, university teacher.
What was Richard S. Hamilton known for?
Notable works include Ricci flow.
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