William “Bill” Browder, an emeritus professor of mathematics, died in early February at the age of 91.
3 thoughts on “William “Bill” Browder”
gerald porter
Before returning to Princeton, Browder had three PhD students at Cornell. I was his first student in 1963, followed by Paul Green and Yuen-Fat Wong in 1964. Bill was a superb advisor.
I don’t know if I had ever met him before 2018, but certainly fellow students and colleagues who’d attended grad school at Princeton many decades earlier had related their fond experiences of him; of course his reputation as an Annals editor, and the great topologist from a family of great mathematicians, is legendary. What I do know is this: before giving a talk at Princeton in October 2018, I arrived a bit early to the seminar room where stragglers from a previous seminar were chatting, a few of whom I knew pretty well and said hello to; within seconds, the host of that previous seminar introduced himself with a warm, welcoming smile: Bill Browder!
Bill eventually became my PhD advisor. When I first visited Princeton in May before I started there in the fall of 1966, I met him and we talked in the old Princeton common room. He looked out the window and observed “We have nice trees on this campus; they grow slowly, but they are nice trees…”. He had a wide open attitude toward ideas and mathematics that is very rare indeed, and the ability to appreciate and guide his students.
Before returning to Princeton, Browder had three PhD students at Cornell. I was his first student in 1963, followed by Paul Green and Yuen-Fat Wong in 1964. Bill was a superb advisor.
I don’t know if I had ever met him before 2018, but certainly fellow students and colleagues who’d attended grad school at Princeton many decades earlier had related their fond experiences of him; of course his reputation as an Annals editor, and the great topologist from a family of great mathematicians, is legendary. What I do know is this: before giving a talk at Princeton in October 2018, I arrived a bit early to the seminar room where stragglers from a previous seminar were chatting, a few of whom I knew pretty well and said hello to; within seconds, the host of that previous seminar introduced himself with a warm, welcoming smile: Bill Browder!
Bill eventually became my PhD advisor. When I first visited Princeton in May before I started there in the fall of 1966, I met him and we talked in the old Princeton common room. He looked out the window and observed “We have nice trees on this campus; they grow slowly, but they are nice trees…”. He had a wide open attitude toward ideas and mathematics that is very rare indeed, and the ability to appreciate and guide his students.