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Viktor KatsAmerican mathematician.
Country:
 USA |
Content:
- Victor Kac: American Mathematician and MIT Professor
- Early Life and Education
- Career at MIT
- Awards and Honors
- Major Contributions
- - Boris G. Katz: Professor of computer science at MIT
Victor Kac: American Mathematician and MIT Professor
Victor G. Kac (born 1943) is an American mathematician who has made significant contributions to representation theory, combinatorics, and mathematical physics.
Early Life and Education
Victor Kac was born in Buguruslan, Russia, in 1943. His family later moved to Chisinau, where he completed his secondary education. In 1965, he graduated from Moscow State University. He then pursued his graduate studies under the supervision of E. B. Vinberg and earned his Ph.D. in 1968.
Career at MIT
After working at the Moscow Institute of Electronic Techniques, Kac moved to Boston in 1976 and has been teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) since 1977. He became an associate professor in 1978 and a full professor in 1981.
Awards and Honors
Kac's remarkable contributions have earned him numerous awards and honors. He received the Sloan Fellowship in 1981, the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1986, and the Wigner Medal in 1994. He is an honorary member of the Moscow Mathematical Society and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Major Contributions
Kac is renowned for his work on Lie algebras, in particular:- Katz-Moody algebras (1968)
- Affine Lie algebras
- Generalized Katz-Moody algebras
- Weyl-Kac character formula
- Kac's determinant formula
Monographic Works
Kac has authored several influential monographs, including:
- Infinite Dimensional Lie Algebras (1983)
- Infinite Dimensional Groups with Applications (1985)
- Bombay Lectures on Highest Weight Representations (1987)
- Infinite-dimensional Lie Algebras and Groups (1989)
- Lie Theory and Geometry (1994)
- Vertex Algebras for Beginners (1996)
- Quantum Calculus (2002)
Brothers' Contributions to Mathematics
Victor Kac has two brothers who are also distinguished mathematicians:
