Vaughan Jones, who discovered “one of the great jewels of the unity of mathematics”
Mathematician Vaughan Jones had little time for the stuffy halls of academia — he accepted his Fields Medal wearing a New Zealand rugby jersey. Jones won mathematics’ top prize for an invention that revolutionized the field of topology, the study of knots and other shapes. His invention, which became known as the Jones polynomial, seeded some of the ideas that physicists later developed into the emerging field of topological quantum computing. Jones died suddenly on 6 September, aged 67, from complications of an ear infection. “He was larger than life in many ways, but at the same time he was very humble,” says mathematician Dietmar Bisch, a long-time collaborator and friend.
Nature | 5 min read
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