Stephen Smale

Stephen Smale (born July 15, 1930) is an American

Stephen Smale
mathematician, known for his research in topology, dynamical
systems and mathematical economics. He was awarded the
Fields Medal in 1966[2] and spent more than three decades on
the mathematics faculty of the University of California,
Berkeley (1960–1961 and 1964–1995), where he currently is
Professor Emeritus, with research interests in algorithms,
numerical analysis and global analysis.[3]

Education and career

Smale in 2008
Smale was born in Flint, Michigan and entered the University
of Michigan in 1948.[4][5] Initially, he was a good student, Born July 15, 1930
placing into an honors calculus sequence taught by Bob Thrall Flint, Michigan
and earning himself A's. However, his sophomore and junior Nationality American
years were marred with mediocre grades, mostly Bs, Cs and
Alma mater University of Michigan
even an F in nuclear physics. However, with some luck, Smale
was accepted as a graduate student at the University of Known for Generalized Poincaré
Michigan's mathematics department. Yet again, Smale conjecture
performed poorly in his first years, earning a C average as a Handle decomposition
graduate student. When the department chair, Hildebrandt, Homoclinic orbit
threatened to kick Smale out, he began to take his studies more Smale's horseshoe
seriously.[6] Smale finally earned his PhD in 1957, under Raoul Smale's theorem
Bott, beginning his career as an instructor at the University of
Smale conjecture
Chicago.
Smale's problems
Early in his career, Smale was involved in controversy over Morse–Smale system
remarks he made regarding his work habits while proving the Morse–Smale
higher-dimensional Poincaré conjecture. He said that his best diffeomorphism
work had been done "on the beaches of Rio."[7][8] He has been Palais–Smale
politically active in various movements in the past, such as the compactness condition
Free Speech movement. In 1966, having travelled to Moscow Blum–Shub–Smale
under an NSF grant to accept the Fields Medal, he held a press machine
conference there to denounce the American position in
Smale–Williams attractor
Vietnam, Soviet intervention in Hungary and Soviet
Morse–Palais lemma
maltreatment of intellectuals. After his return to the US, he was
Regular homotopy
unable to renew the grant.[9] At one time he was
Sard's theorem
subpoenaed[10] by the House Un-American Activities
Committee. Sphere eversion
Structural stability
In 1960, Smale received a Sloan Research Fellowship and was Whitehead torsion
appointed to the Berkeley mathematics faculty, moving to a Diffeomorphism
professorship at Columbia the following year. In 1964 he
Awards Wolf Prize (2007)
returned to a professorship at Berkeley, where he has spent the
National Medal of
main part of his career. He became a professor emeritus at
Science (1996)
Berkeley in 1995 and took up a post as professor at the City Chauvenet Prize
University of Hong Kong. He also amassed over the years one (1988)[1]
of the finest private mineral collections in existence. Many of Fields Medal (1966)
Smale's mineral specimens can be seen in the book—The Oswald Veblen Prize in
Smale Collection: Beauty in Natural Crystals.[11] Geometry (1966)

From 2003 to 2012, Smale was a professor at the Toyota Sloan Fellowship (1960)
Technological Institute at Chicago;[12] starting August 1, 2009, Scientific career
he became a Distinguished University Professor at the City Fields Mathematics
University of Hong Kong.[13]
Institutions Toyota Technological
In 1988, Smale was the recipient of the Chauvenet Prize[1] of Institute at Chicago
the MAA. In 2007, Smale was awarded the Wolf Prize in City University of Hong
mathematics.[14] Kong
University of Chicago
Columbia University
Research
University of California,
Smale proved that the oriented diffeomorphism group of the Berkeley
two-dimensional sphere has the same homotopy type as the Thesis Regular Curves on
special orthogonal group of 3 × 3 matrices.[15] Smale's Riemannian Manifolds
theorem has been reproved and extended a few times, notably (https://www.proquest.co
to higher dimensions in the form of the Smale conjecture,[16] as m/docview/301954268?
well as to other topological types.[17] pq-origsite=gscholar&fro
mopenview=true) (1957)
In another early work, he studied the immersions of the two-
dimensional sphere into Euclidean space.[18] By relating Doctoral Raoul Bott
immersion theory to the algebraic topology of Stiefel advisor
manifolds, he was able to fully clarify when two immersions Doctoral Rufus Bowen
can be deformed into one another through a family of students César Camacho
immersions. Directly from his results it followed that the Robert L. Devaney
standard immersion of the sphere into three-dimensional space
John Guckenheimer
can be deformed (through immersions) into its negation, which
Morris Hirsch
is now known as sphere eversion. He also extended his results
Nancy Kopell
to higher-dimensional spheres,[19] and his doctoral student
Morris Hirsch extended his work to immersions of general Jacob Palis
smooth manifolds.[20] Along with John Nash's work on Themistocles M.
isometric immersions, the Hirsch–Smale immersion theory was Rassias
highly influential in Mikhael Gromov's early work on James Renegar
development of the h-principle, which abstracted and applied Siavash Shahshahani
their ideas to contexts other than that of immersions.[21] Mike Shub

In the study of dynamical systems, Smale introduced what is now known as a Morse–Smale system.[22]
For these dynamical systems, Smale was able to prove Morse inequalities relating the cohomology of the
underlying space to the dimensions of the (un)stable manifolds. Part of the significance of these results is
from Smale's theorem asserting that the gradient flow of any Morse function can be arbitrarily well
approximated by a Morse–Smale system without closed orbits.[23] Using these tools, Smale was able to
construct self-indexing Morse functions, where the value of the function equals its Morse index at any
critical point.[24] Using these self-indexing Morse functions as a key tool, Smale resolved the generalized
Poincaré conjecture in every dimension greater than four.[25] Building on these works, he also established
the more powerful h-cobordism theorem the following year, together with the full classification of simply-
connected smooth five-dimensional manifolds.[26][24]
Smale also identified the Smale horseshoe, inspiring much subsequent research. He also outlined a research
program carried out by many others. Smale is also known for injecting Morse theory into mathematical
economics, as well as recent explorations of various theories of computation.

In 1998 he compiled a list of 18 problems in mathematics to be solved in the 21st century, known as
Smale's problems.[27] This list was compiled in the spirit of Hilbert's famous list of problems produced in
1900. In fact, Smale's list contains some of the original Hilbert problems, including the Riemann hypothesis
and the second half of Hilbert's sixteenth problem, both of which are still unsolved. Other famous problems
on his list include the Poincaré conjecture (now a theorem, proved by Grigori Perelman), the P = NP
problem, and the Navier–Stokes equations, all of which have been designated Millennium Prize Problems
by the Clay Mathematics Institute.

Books
Smale, Steve (1980). The mathematics of time: essays on dynamical systems, economic
processes, and related topics. New York-Berlin: Springer-Verlag. doi:10.1007/978-1-4613-
8101-3 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2F978-1-4613-8101-3). ISBN 0-387-90519-7. MR 0607330
(https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0607330). Zbl 0451.58001 (https://zbmat
h.org/?format=complete&q=an:0451.58001).
Blum, Lenore; Cucker, Felipe; Shub, Michael; Smale, Steve (1998). Complexity and real
computation. With a foreword by Richard M. Karp. New York: Springer-Verlag.
doi:10.1007/978-1-4612-0701-6 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2F978-1-4612-0701-6). ISBN 0-
387-98281-7. MR 1479636 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1479636).
S2CID 12510680 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:12510680). Zbl 0948.68068 (htt
ps://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:0948.68068).
Hirsch, Morris W.; Smale, Stephen; Devaney, Robert L. (2013). Differential equations,
dynamical systems, and an introduction to chaos (Third edition of 1974 original ed.).
Amsterdam: Academic Press. doi:10.1016/C2009-0-61160-0 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2FC2
009-0-61160-0). ISBN 978-0-12-382010-5. MR 3293130 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathsci
net-getitem?mr=3293130). Zbl 1239.37001 (https://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:123
9.37001).
Cucker, F.; Wong, R., eds. (2000). The collected papers of Stephen Smale. In three volumes.
Singapore: Singapore University Press. doi:10.1142/4424 (https://doi.org/10.1142%2F442
4). ISBN 981-02-4307-3. MR 1781696 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1
781696). Zbl 0995.01005 (https://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:0995.01005).

Important publications
Smale, Stephen (1959a). "A classification of immersions of the two-sphere" (https://doi.org/1
0.1090%2FS0002-9947-1959-0104227-9). Transactions of the American Mathematical
Society. 90 (2): 281–290. doi:10.1090/S0002-9947-1959-0104227-9 (https://doi.org/10.109
0%2FS0002-9947-1959-0104227-9). MR 0104227 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-g
etitem?mr=0104227). Zbl 0089.18102 (https://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:0089.181
02).
Smale, Stephen (1959b). "The classification of immersions of spheres in Euclidean spaces".
Annals of Mathematics. Second Series. 69 (2): 327–344. doi:10.2307/1970186 (https://doi.or
g/10.2307%2F1970186). JSTOR 1970186 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1970186).
MR 0105117 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0105117). Zbl 0089.18201
(https://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:0089.18201).
Smale, Stephen (1959c). "Diffeomorphisms of the 2-sphere" (https://doi.org/10.1090%2FS00
02-9939-1959-0112149-8). Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society. 10 (4): 621–
626. doi:10.1090/S0002-9939-1959-0112149-8 (https://doi.org/10.1090%2FS0002-9939-19
59-0112149-8). MR 0112149 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0112149).
Zbl 0118.39103 (https://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:0118.39103).
Smale, Stephen (1960). "Morse inequalities for a dynamical system" (https://doi.org/10.109
0%2FS0002-9904-1960-10386-2). Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. 66 (1):
43–49. doi:10.1090/S0002-9904-1960-10386-2 (https://doi.org/10.1090%2FS0002-9904-19
60-10386-2). MR 0117745 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0117745).
Zbl 0100.29701 (https://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:0100.29701).
Smale, Stephen (1961a). "On gradient dynamical systems". Annals of Mathematics. Second
Series. 74 (1): 199–206. doi:10.2307/1970311 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F1970311).
JSTOR 1970311 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1970311). MR 0133139 (https://mathscinet.am
s.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0133139). Zbl 0136.43702 (https://zbmath.org/?format=comple
te&q=an:0136.43702).
Smale, Stephen (1961b). "Generalized Poincaré's conjecture in dimensions greater than
four". Annals of Mathematics. Second Series. 74 (2): 391–406. doi:10.2307/1970239 (https://
doi.org/10.2307%2F1970239). JSTOR 1970239 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1970239).
MR 0137124 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0137124). Zbl 0099.39202
(https://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:0099.39202).
Smale, S. (1962a). "On the structure of manifolds". American Journal of Mathematics. 84 (3):
387–399. doi:10.2307/2372978 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F2372978). JSTOR 2372978 (htt
ps://www.jstor.org/stable/2372978). MR 0153022 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-geti
tem?mr=0153022). Zbl 0109.41103 (https://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:0109.4110
3).
Smale, Stephen (1962b). "On the structure of 5-manifolds". Annals of Mathematics. Second
Series. 75 (1): 38–46. doi:10.2307/1970417 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F1970417).
JSTOR 1970417 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1970417). MR 0141133 (https://mathscinet.am
s.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0141133). Zbl 0101.16103 (https://zbmath.org/?format=comple
te&q=an:0101.16103).
Smale, S. (1965). "An infinite dimensional version of Sard's theorem". Amer. J. Math. 87 (4):
861–866. doi:10.2307/2373250 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F2373250). JSTOR 2373250 (htt
ps://www.jstor.org/stable/2373250).
Smale, Stephen (1967). "Differentiable dynamical systems" (https://doi.org/10.1090%2FS00
02-9904-1967-11798-1). Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. 73 (6): 747–817.
doi:10.1090/S0002-9904-1967-11798-1 (https://doi.org/10.1090%2FS0002-9904-1967-1179
8-1). MR 0228014 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0228014).
Blum, Lenore; Shub, Mike; Smale, Steve (1989). "On a theory of computation and complexity
over the real numbers: NP-completeness, recursive functions and universal machines" (http
s://doi.org/10.1090%2FS0273-0979-1989-15750-9). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. New Series. 21
(1): 1–46. doi:10.1090/S0273-0979-1989-15750-9 (https://doi.org/10.1090%2FS0273-0979-
1989-15750-9).
Shub, Michael; Smale, Stephen (1993). "Complexity of Bézout's Theorem I: Geometric
Aspects". Journal of the American Mathematical Society. Providence, Rhode Island:
American Mathematical Society. 6 (2): 459–501. doi:10.2307/2152805 (https://doi.org/10.230
7%2F2152805). JSTOR 2152805 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2152805).
Smale, Steve (1998). "Mathematical problems for the next century". The Mathematical
Intelligencer. 20 (2): 7–15. doi:10.1007/BF03025291 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2FBF030252
91). MR 1631413 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1631413).
S2CID 1331144 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:1331144). Zbl 0947.01011 (http
s://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:0947.01011).
Smale, Steve (2000). "Mathematical problems for the next century". In Arnold, V.; Atiyah, M.;
Lax, P.; Mazur, B. (eds.). Mathematics: frontiers and perspectives. Providence, RI: American
 Mathematical Society. pp. 271–294. ISBN 0-8218-2070-2. MR 1754783 (https://mathscinet.a
ms.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1754783). Zbl 1031.00005 (https://zbmath.org/?format=comp
lete&q=an:1031.00005).
Cucker, Felipe; Smale, Steve (2002). "On the mathematical foundations of learning" (https://
doi.org/10.1090%2FS0273-0979-01-00923-5). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. New Series. 39 (1): 1–
49. doi:10.1090/S0273-0979-01-00923-5 (https://doi.org/10.1090%2FS0273-0979-01-00923
-5).
Cucker, Felipe; Smale, Steve (2007). "Emergent behavior in flocks". IEEE Trans. Autom.
Control. 52 (5): 852–862. doi:10.1109/TAC.2007.895842 (https://doi.org/10.1109%2FTAC.20
07.895842). S2CID 206590734 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:206590734).*

See also
5-manifold
Axiom A
Geometric mechanics
Homotopy principle
Mean value problem

References
1. Smale, Steve (1985). "On the Efficiency of Algorithms in Analysis" (http://www.maa.org/progr
ams/maa-awards/writing-awards/on-the-efficiency-of-algorithms-in-analysis). Bulletin of the
American Mathematical Society. New Series. 13 (2): 87–121. doi:10.1090/S0273-0979-
1985-15391-1 (https://doi.org/10.1090%2FS0273-0979-1985-15391-1).
2. "How Math Got Its 'Nobel' " (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/opinion/sunday/how-math-
got-its-nobel-.html?_r=0). The New York Times. 8 August 2014. Retrieved 21 October 2016.
3. "Stephen Smale" (https://math.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/stephen-smale). University of
California, Berkeley. Retrieved 27 November 2021.
4. William L. Hosch, ed. (2010). The Britannica Guide to Geometry (https://books.google.com/b
ooks?id=HcmcAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA225). Britannica Educational Publishing. p. 225.
ISBN 9781615302178.
5. Batterson, Steve (2000). Steven Smale: The Mathematician Who Broke the Dimension
Barrier (https://books.google.com/books?id=C1cLnAm7gcwC&pg=PA11). American
Mathematical Soc. p. 11. ISBN 9780821826966.
6. Video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmpPUjOeMGI) on YouTube
7. He discovered the famous Smale horseshoe map on a beach in Leme, Rio de Janeiro. See:
S. Smale (1996), Chaos: Finding a Horseshoe on the Beaches of Rio (http://math.berkeley.e
du/~smale/biblio/chaos.ps).
8. CS Aravinda (2018). "ICM 2018: On the beaches of Rio de Janeiro" (https://bhavana.org.in/ic
m-2018-beaches-rio-de-janeiro). Bhāvanā. 2 (3). Retrieved 8 October 2022.
9. Andrew Jamison (5 October 1967). "Math Professors Question Denial Of Smale Grant" (http
s://www.thecrimson.com/article/1967/10/5/math-professors-question-denial-of-smale/). The
Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 13 February 2022.
10. Greenberg, D. S. (1966-10-07). "The Smale Case: NSF and Berkeley Pass Through a Case
of Jitters". Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). 154
(3745): 130–133. Bibcode:1966Sci...154..130G (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1966Sci...
154..130G). doi:10.1126/science.154.3745.130 (https://doi.org/10.1126%2Fscience.154.374
5.130). ISSN 0036-8075 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0036-8075). PMID 17740098 (https://
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17740098).
11. "Lithographie LTD" (http://www.lithographie.org/bookshop/the_smale_collection.htm).
www.lithographie.org.
12. "Faculty Alumni" (https://www.ttic.edu/faculty-alumni/). ttic.edu.
13. Stephen Smale Vita. (http://ttic.uchicago.edu/~smale/vita.html) Accessed November 18,
2009.
14. "The Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Division of Marketing & Communication" (https://we
b.archive.org/web/20160303194235/http://www.huji.ac.il/cgi-bin/dovrut/dovrut_search_eng_
dev.pl?mesge116895485932688760). www.huji.ac.il. Archived from the original (http://www.
huji.ac.il/cgi-bin/dovrut/dovrut_search_eng_dev.pl?mesge116895485932688760) on 2016-
03-03. Retrieved 2007-02-04.
15. Smale 1959c.
16. Hatcher, Allen E. (1983). "A proof of the Smale conjecture, Diff(S3) ≃ O(4)". Annals of
Mathematics. Second Series. 117 (3): 553–607. doi:10.2307/2007035 (https://doi.org/10.230
7%2F2007035). JSTOR 2007035 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2007035). MR 0701256 (http
s://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0701256). Zbl 0531.57028 (https://zbmath.or
g/?format=complete&q=an:0531.57028).
17. Earle, Clifford J.; Eells, James (1969). "A fibre bundle description of Teichmüller theory" (http
s://doi.org/10.4310%2Fjdg%2F1214428816). Journal of Differential Geometry. 3 (1–2): 19–
43. doi:10.4310/jdg/1214428816 (https://doi.org/10.4310%2Fjdg%2F1214428816).
MR 0276999 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0276999). Zbl 0185.32901
(https://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:0185.32901).
18. Smale 1959a.
19. Smale 1959b.
20. Hirsch, Morris W. (1959). "Immersions of manifolds" (https://doi.org/10.1090%2FS0002-9947
-1959-0119214-4). Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. 93 (2): 242–276.
doi:10.1090/S0002-9947-1959-0119214-4 (https://doi.org/10.1090%2FS0002-9947-1959-01
19214-4). MR 0119214 (https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0119214).
Zbl 0113.17202 (https://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:0113.17202).
21. Gromov, Mikhael (1986). Partial differential relations. Ergebnisse der Mathematik und ihrer
Grenzgebiete, 3. Folge. Vol. 9. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. doi:10.1007/978-3-662-02267-2 (http
s://doi.org/10.1007%2F978-3-662-02267-2). ISBN 3-540-12177-3. MR 0864505 (https://math
scinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0864505). Zbl 0651.53001 (https://zbmath.org/?form
at=complete&q=an:0651.53001).
22. Smale 1960.
23. Smale 1961a.
24. Milnor, John (1965). Lectures on the h-cobordism theorem. Notes by L. Siebenmann and J.
Sondow. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. doi:10.1515/9781400878055 (https://do
i.org/10.1515%2F9781400878055). ISBN 9781400878055. MR 0190942 (https://mathscinet.
ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0190942). Zbl 0161.20302 (https://zbmath.org/?format=com
plete&q=an:0161.20302).
25. Smale 1961b.
26. Smale 1962a; Smale 1962b.
27. Smale 1998; Smale 2000.
External links
"Stephen Smale" (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rKyTmpkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
=). Google Scholar.
Stephen Smale (https://mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=5086) at the Mathematics Genealogy
Project
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Stephen Smale" (https://mathshistory.st-andrew
s.ac.uk/Biographies/Smale.html), MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St
Andrews
Weisstein, Eric W. "Smale's Problems" (https://mathworld.wolfram.com/SmalesProblems.ht
ml). MathWorld.
Robion Kirby, Stephen Smale: The Mathematician Who Broke the Dimension Barrier (http://
www.ams.org/notices/200011/rev-kirby.pdf), a book review of a biography in the Notices of
the AMS.

Personal websites at universities

Steven Smale (http://www.ee.cityu.edu.hk/~cccn/smale.htm) at the City University of Hong

Kong
Stephen Smale (http://ttic.uchicago.edu/~smale/vita.html) at the University of Chicago
Steve Smale (http://math.berkeley.edu/~smale/) at the University of California, Berkeley

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stephen_Smale&oldid=1167110200"