mathematician university professor
Hubbard graduated with a Doctorat d"État from Université de Paris-Sud in 1973 under the direction of Adrien Douady. His thesis was entitled Sur Les Sections Analytiques de Louisiana Courbe Universelle de Teichmüller and was published by the American Mathematical Society.
He is an American mathematician who is currently a professor at Cornell University and the Université de Provence. He is well known for the mathematical contributions he made with Adrien Douady in the field of complex dynamics, including a study of the Mandelbrot set. One of their most important results is that the Mandelbrot set is connected.
Hubbard has a variety of mathematical interests ranging from complex analysis to differential geometry.
He has written many influential papers on complex dynamics, and he has written several books In 2006, he has completed another: the first volume of a series devoted to Teichmüller theory and applications to four revolutionary theorems of William Thurston.
Hubbard is a former student of Harvard University"s infamous Mathematics 55, where he famously struggled initially because he "just didn"t know proofs," a somewhat shocking fact considering his eventual mathematical success. He later returned to Harvard to teach that same class.
However, Hubbard garnered a rather profound distaste for Mathematics 55"s method of teaching proofs largely centered on algebraic induction.
At Cornell University, he routinely teaches Mathematics 2230 & 2240, classes specifically structured around this same text. When asked how well these classes correspond to Mathematics 55, he responded: "This class may indeed be somewhat easier than Mathematics 55, albeit perhaps covering slightly more material."
Hubbard is known throughout the Cornell community for his very relaxed style of teaching. He often starts class late, after a period of conversing with students on a variety of more personal, informal topics, such as his hobby of collecting and purveying various local varieties of mushrooms found across campus, easily citing the given binomial nomenclature for each species.
