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Concept
W. V. D. Hodge
Summary
Sir William Vallance Douglas Hodge (hɒdʒ; 17 June 1903 – 7 July 1975) was a British mathematician, specifically a geometer.
His discovery of far-reaching topological relations between algebraic geometry and differential geometry—an area now called Hodge theory and pertaining more generally to Kähler manifolds—has been a major influence on subsequent work in geometry.
Hodge was born in Edinburgh in 1903, the younger son and second of three children of Archibald James Hodge (1869-1938), a searcher of records in the property market and a partner in the firm of Douglas and Company, and his wife, Jane (born 1875), daughter of confectionery business owner William Vallance. They lived at 1 Church Hill Place in the Morningside district.
He attended George Watson's College, and studied at Edinburgh University, graduating MA in 1923. With help from E. T. Whittaker, whose son J. M. Whittaker was a college friend, he then took the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos. At Cambridge he fell under the influence of the geometer H. F. Baker. He gained a Cambridge BA degree in 1925, receiving the MA in 1930 and the Doctor of Science (ScD) degree in 1950.
In 1926 he took up a teaching position at the University of Bristol, and began work on the interface between the Italian school of algebraic geometry, particularly problems posed by Francesco Severi, and the topological methods of Solomon Lefschetz. This made his reputation, but led to some initial scepticism on the part of Lefschetz. According to Atiyah's memoir, Lefschetz and Hodge in 1931 had a meeting in Max Newman's rooms in Cambridge, to try to resolve issues. In the end Lefschetz was convinced.
In 1928 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker, Ralph Allan Sampson, Charles Glover Barkla, and Sir Charles Galton Darwin. He was awarded the Society's Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize for the period 1964 to 1968.
In 1930 Hodge was awarded a Research Fellowship at St. John's College, Cambridge.
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