is a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

. After completing his undergraduate studies at Kyoto University

Kyoto University

, or is a national university located in Kyoto, Japan. It is the second oldest Japanese university, and formerly one of Japan's Imperial Universities.- History :...

, he received his Ph.D.

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 from Harvard while under the direction of Oscar Zariski

Oscar Zariski

Oscar Zariski was a Russian mathematician and one of the most influential algebraic geometers of the 20th century.-Education:...

. He won the Fields Medal

Fields Medal

The Fields Medal, officially known as International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union , a meeting that takes place every four...

 in 1970.

He is celebrated for proving in 1964 that singularities of algebraic varieties

Singular point of an algebraic variety

In mathematics, a singular point of an algebraic variety V is a point P that is 'special' , in the geometric sense that V is not locally flat there. In the case of an algebraic curve, a plane curve that has a double point, such as the cubic curveexhibits at , cannot simply be parametrized near the...

 admit resolutions

Resolution of singularities

In algebraic geometry, the problem of resolution of singularities asks whether every algebraic variety V has a resolution, a non-singular variety W with a proper birational map W→V...

 in characteristic zero. This means that any algebraic variety

Algebraic variety

In mathematics, an algebraic variety is the set of solutions of a system of polynomial equations. Algebraic varieties are one of the central objects of study in algebraic geometry...

 can be replaced by (more precisely is birationally equivalent to) a similar variety which has no singularities.

Hironaka was for many years a Professor of mathematics at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 but currently lives in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, where he is greatly respected and influential. He is also a professor of mathematics at Seoul National University

Seoul National University

Seoul National University , colloquially known in Korean as Seoul-dae , is a national research university in Seoul, Korea, ranked 24th in the world in publications in an analysis of data from the Science Citation Index, 7th in Asia and 42nd in the world by the 2011 QS World University Rankings...

 in South Korea

South Korea

The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

. He has been active in raising funds for causes such as mathematical education. He is president of the University of Creation; Art, Music & Social Work

University of Creation; Art, Music & Social Work

The , sometimes called Souzou Gakuen University is a private university in Takasaki, Gunma, Japan, established in 2004. The president of the school is Daitetsu Koike.-Nakayama campus:Houses the Creative Arts Department....

, a private university in Takasaki, Gunma, Japan.

He once wrote a paper under a pseudonym derived from Kobayashi Issa

Kobayashi Issa

, was a Japanese poet and lay Buddhist priest of the Jōdo Shinshū sect known for his haiku poems and journals. He is better known as simply , a pen name meaning Cup-of-tea...

, a famous Japanese haiku poet. The result is known as Issa's theorem in complex function theory.

Hironaka is married to Wakako Hironaka

Wakako Hironaka

is a Japanese writer and politician. She is a member of the House of Councillors . Her political affiliation is with the Democratic Party of Japan. Her husband is Heisuke Hironaka, a mathematician.-Politician:...

, a politician, and they have two children.

List of books available in English

• Formal functions and formal imbeddings / by Heisuke Hironaka and Hideyuki Matsumura (1967)
• On the characters and of singularities / by Heisuke Hironaka
• Introduction to the theory of infinitely near singular points / Heisuke Hironaka (1974)
• The theory of the maximal contact / José M. Aroca, Heisuke Hironaka and José L. Vicente (1975)
• Desingularization theorems / Jose M. Aroca, Heisuke Hironaka and Jose L. Vicente (1977)
• Geometric singularity theory / editors of the volume, Heisuke Hironaka, Stanisław Janeczko (2004)

External links

• Jackson, Allyn; Interview with Heisuke Hironaka; Notices of the American Mathematical Society; vol. 52, no. 9 (October 2005).