Professor Nigel Hitchin's commendation video transcript

Professor Nigel Hitchin FRS

PROFESSOR NEIL FOWLER: Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Lord Lieutenant, High Sheriff, Honoured guests, Graduands of 2023 and all our guests here today, it gives me great pleasure to be presenting Professor Nigel Hitchin FRS for the award of Honorary Doctor of the University.

Professor Nigel Hitchin is one of the world's foremost figures in the field of geometry and its relationship with mathematical physics. His wide-ranging contributions to mathematical research span more than half a century, and his deep theoretical insights have gained him the respect of his peers around the world.

Nigel is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, and a recipient of many honours and awards. He has spent most of his academic life at Oxford, being awarded the Savilian Professorship of Geometry in 1997 - a position that has been graced by some of the world's top mathematicians including Henry Briggs, co-founder of the logarithms and Edmund Halley with his eponymous comet. This is a position which Nigel held until his retirement. 

Born in Holbrook, Derbyshire, he was one of the first pupils to attend the new Ecclesbourne grammar school in Duffield when it opened in 1957. And despite Mathematics initially being taught by the French or PE Masters in the small school, Nigel's passion for the subject flourished.

On leaving school and working for a few months at Rolls-Royce surrounded by mathematics graduates, he was accepted to study Mathematics at Jesus College, Oxford. Nigel was taught by some of the finest mathematical brains in the country at Oxford, including Michael Attiyah and his college tutor Edward Thompson, who he later learned had worked at Bletchley Park. They extended his intellectual horizons and broadened his interests in pure mathematics to include algebraic geometry, topology and differential geometry to which he contributed many important results during his life as a distinguished academic.

Nigel received his doctor of Philosophy degree from Oxford in 1972, and between 1971 and 1973, he worked at the world famous Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey, where he met his wife, Nedda.

On his return to Oxford in 1974, he was appointed research fellow and thereafter, from 1979, tutor, lecturer and fellow of Saint Catherine's College. In 1990, he became a professor at the University of Warwick, and during his time there he was elected a Fellowship of the Royal Society.

In 1994, he was offered the post of the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, where for three years he shared a room with Professor Stephen Hawking. After receiving a call from Oxford concerning the vacant Savilian chair, he returned to his alma mater to take up that eminent position in 1997, and where he remained for 19 years until his retirement in 2016.

Amongst Nigel's notable discoveries are the theory of Higgs bundles and the Hitchin integrable system.

Nigel has been presented with many awards over the span of his career, including the prestigious Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences in Hong Kong, which is widely regarded as the 'Nobel Prize of the East'.

We are honoured to have Nigel join our celebrations here today, accompanied by his wife, Nedda.

Chancellor, in recognition of his wide-ranging contribution to mathematical research spanning many decades, we are delighted to award Professor Nigel Hitchin the Honorary Degree of Doctor of the University.

PROFESSOR NIGEL HITCHIN FRS: Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Lord Lieutenant, High Sheriff, Honoured guests, Graduands of 2023 and all of our guests here today, I would first like to thank Professor Fowler for his kind words and to say how much I appreciate this award returning me to my roots in Derby.

In fact, putting on my robes earlier in the Clough Taylor room took me back to the time that I was the age of the graduands here, many of the graduands here. I was a keen supporter of Derby County in those heady days but I became somewhat of a fair-weather friend I'm afraid subsequently, and looking back at those times, the forerunner of this University was really Derby Technical College. And I have to say that my only memory of it was attending a computer course where we never saw a computer, we were handed adding machines and told to perform some iterative procedures on them. But soon after that, I encountered one in Elton Road, but they were nothing like the sort of thing that you all use on a daily basis.

So my career has not however been in computer science, but in mathematics, sometimes described as the subject where we never know what we're talking about or whether what we are saying is true. A few minutes ago you heard some words describing some of my work and you'll be relieved to know that there's no time for me to explain it further here. What you also heard was that I was initially taught mathematics by the French teacher at school which is true, but in fairness I should point out that we also had a little later a dedicated mathematics teacher to whom I would like to pay a tribute today, his name was Norman Else. He died earlier this year age 91, he was also a Derbyshire man and it was he, who set me off on the course which has led me here.

I've been fortunate to pursue a career which coincided with my interests, fortunate to have the right ideas at the right time, and fortunate to have had the support of my wife and family.

I congratulate those students receiving their degrees today, and I wish them the same for the future. I thank you again for this honour.

Professor Nigel Hitchin's commendation video

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