Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn Mourns Death of Yuri Manin

Emeritus director of institute passed away at age 85

Bonn, January 8, 2023. The Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn mourns the death of Professor Yuri Ivanovich Manin. The eminent mathematician passed away on Saturday, January 7, at the age of 85. Yuri Manin was a scientific member and director of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics from 1992 to 2005, after which he remained an extremely active emeritus director. His work largely influenced the development of modern mathematics. With Yuri Manin, mathematics has lost one of his truly great personalities. He was a wonderful human being and a renowned researcher whose contributions have shaped the entire field. Our institute will always remain his institute, too.

Yuri Ivanovich Manin was born on February 16, 1937 in Simferopol, Crimea, in the Soviet Union. He studied physics and mathematics at Lomonosov Moscow State University where he graduated in 1958. In 1960 he received his doctorate and in 1963 his habilitation from the Steklov Institute of Mathematics in Moscow, where he was Principal Researcher until 1992. After a year on the faculty of MIT in 1992-1993, he became a director at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in 1993.

Yuri Manin's many important contributions to mathematics cover a wide spectrum of topics in algebraic geometry, number theory, and mathematical physics. He is an author of over 300 research papers and 11 books. For his manifold achievements he received a number of awards and prizes, among others, the Lenin Prize 1967, the Brouwer Medal 1987, the Frederic Esser Nemmers Prize 1994, the Rolf Schock Prize in Mathematics 1999, the King Faisal International Prize in Mathematics 2002, the Georg Cantor Medal 2002, the Order pour le Mérite for Science and Art, Germany, 2007, the Great Cross of Merit with Star, Germany, 2008, the János Bolyai International Mathematical Prize 2010. He was a member of nine Academies of Sciences and an Honorary Member of the London Mathematical Society. He held honorary degrees at the Sorbonne, and the Universities in Oslo and Warwick.