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Professor Receives Praise for 40 Year Old Problem
An anonymous reader writes "The Kansas City Star is reporting that Steven Hofmann is in line to receive accolades from his peers this coming year in Madrid, Spain for solving a mathematical problem that has baffled mathematicians for over 40 years. Hofmann, a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, solved the 3 dimensional version of the 'Kato problem for divergence form elliptic operators with Gaussian heat kernel bounds' (say that 10 times fast!). From the article: 'For three years, starting in 1996, Hofmann worked on the problem for two to eight hours every day [...] Hofmann said the solution could allow mathematicians to better describe the behavior of waves traveling through a medium that changes over time. But beyond that, he said, it is impossible for him to explain all the real-world applications.'"
It really doesn't explain much about the problem, but it does do a nice job of explaining how some people wind up in mathematics:
"Hofmann majored in math, he said, "because it was the path of least resistance." While his friends were writing history papers that were many pages long or spending hours in a computer lab, "all I had to do was solve math problems, and it was something that came to me naturally," he said.
"By the time you get to graduate school, even if it comes naturally, it gets hard, and that is when you begin to develop a skill to go with the ability.""
It's nice to see an article about a mathematician that isn't a "look at the freaky math guy" or "look at the useless thing we're paying people to do" kind of writeup, but just about someone who was enjoyed playing with mathematics, and has done well by it.
Anyone have a better explanation of what he did or where it fits in? Is it more theoretical or applied? What stuff is it related to?