Detlef Gromoll

Detlef Gromoll
Born	13 May 1938(1938-05-13) Berlin, Germany
Died	31 May 2008(2008-05-31) (aged 70) Stony Brook, New York
Nationality	German American
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	SUNY Stony Brook
Alma mater	University of Bonn
Doctoral advisor	Friedrich Hirzebruch
Doctoral students	Gabriel Paternain Gerard Walschap Guofang Wei

Detlef Gromoll (13 May 1938 – 31 May 2008) was a mathematician who studied distortions of shapes in three or more dimensions. In his soul theorem, published in 1972, he and Jeff Cheeger studied the properties of surfaces that have flat regions or curves like the outside of a sphere but not regions shaped liked saddles. They found "the properties of such surfaces, infinite in extent and existing in any number of dimensions, could be deduced from a finite central core region".^[1]

Gromoll was born in Berlin in 1938. After living and attending school in Rosdorf, he obtained his Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Bonn in 1964. Following sojourns at several other universities, he joined the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1969. He married Suzan L. Lemay on 29 December 1971, and they had three children together: his eldest son Hans Christian (also a mathematician), a daughter Heidi, currently training to be a physician, and youngest son Stefan, a physicist & cofounder of Scientic Media.

He died from a cerebral hemorrhage on 31 May 2008.

References

1. ^ Chang, Kenneth (2008-06-19). "Detlef Gromoll, Known for Math ‘Soul’ Idea, Dies at 70". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/science/19gromoll.html. Retrieved 2008-06-19. "Detlef Gromoll, a mathematician who helped lay the foundations for studying the abstract distortions of shapes in three or more dimensions, died on May 31 in Stony Brook, N.Y. He was 70." 

External links

• Detlef Gromoll at the Mathematics Genealogy Project.

Persondata
Name	Gromoll, Detlef
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	13 May 1938
Place of birth	Berlin, Germany
Date of death	31 May 2008
Place of death	Stony Brook, New York