Address of the President Sir Alan Hodgkin, O.M. at the Anniversary Meeting, 30 November 1974

• Published in: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences Biological sciences, 1975-02, Vol.188 (1091), p.103-119
• Main Author: Hodgkin, Alan Lloyd
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0080-4649; 2053-9193
• DOI: 10.1098/rspb.1975.0006

The Copley Medal is awarded to Sir William Hodge, F. R. S. There is little doubt that Sir William Hodge is one of the outstanding British mathematicians of our time. His reputation rests firmly on his fundamental contributions to algebraic geometry and in particular on his theory of harmonic integrals. It is no exaggeration to say that Hodge’s work in the 1930s completely changed the character and direction of higher-dimensional geometry. By a brilliant application of ideas and techniques from differential geometry, topology and analysis he revitalized algebraic geometry and brought it into a central position in mathematics. Although the importance of the theory of harmonic integrals was recognized at an early stage, its influence on the development of mathematics can only now be seen in true perspective. A survey of present-day research shows clearly that Hodge’s work was one of the milestones in twentieth-century mathematics. In particular the famous ‘Hodge conjectures’ concerning algebraic cycles are now recognized to be deep and challenging. They have almost reached the status of such classical unsolved problems as the Riemann hypothesis, the Poincare conjecture or Fermat’s last theorem. Hodge has also been very active on the national and international scene. For many years he played a leading role in British mathematics, and was prominent in organizing the International Mathematical Union after 1945. He served as Vice-President of the I.M.U., and as Physical Secretary of the Royal Society from 1957 to 1965. He is a worthy recipient of the Copley Medal and an eminently suitable successor to Hardy and Littlewood, the last pure mathematicians to be so honoured.