William Beckner

Department of Mathematics
University of Texas at Austin
2515 Speedway Stop C1200
Austin, Texas 78712-1202

Phone:

Department: 512-471-7711
Fax: 512-471-9038

E-Mail:

beckner@math.utexas.edu

Research:

to examine how the interplay of symmetry, smoothness and uncertainty
can characterize structure for geometric manifolds

• Fourier Analysis
  
• Geometric Inequalities
  
• Lie Groups & Differential Geometry
  
• Mathematical Physics
  
• Partial Differential Equations
  
• Probability
  

Teaching:

to foster creative tension between research & teaching

Purpose -- to engage students on the cutting edge of curiosity and provide the analytical tools to decode
and explain the universe, investigate new and difficult things, recognize beauty in mathematics and nature
[with lines borrowed from Isaac Newton and friends]

To those who do not know mathematics, it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty,
the deepest beauty, of nature. If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary
to understand the language that she speaks in. [Richard Feynman]

• Real Analysis (365C) [Fall 12]
• Differential Equations (427K) [Fall 12]
• Stein Seminar [tentative]
• Methods of Real Analysis (365D) [Spring 13]
• Dean's Scholars Seminar [Spring 13]

Current Reading:

• Turing's Cathedral - The Origins of the Digital Universe (George Dyson)
  
• Nuclear Forces - The Making of the Physicist Hans Bethe (Silvan S. Schweber)
  
• The Particle at the End of the Universe (Sean Carroll)
  
• At Home with Andre and Simone Weil (Sylvie Weil)
  

Recommended Books:

• Higgs - The Invention & Discovery of the 'God Particle' (Jim Baggott)
  

Education:

• BS in Physics, University of Missouri (Columbia); Adviser - Bernard Goodman
  
• PhD in Mathematics, Princeton University; Adviser - Elias M. Stein
  
• Post-doctoral study, University of Chicago; Adviser - A.P. Calderon

Honors:

• Prix Salem 1975
• Sloan Research Fellow 1977
• ICM Invited Lecture -- Helsinki, 1978

Administrative Positions:

• Managing Editor, Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, 2000-05
• Chair, Department of Mathematics, 2007-11
• Assistant Director, Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, 2006-