Mudumbai Seshachalu Narasimhan

Abstract In the wake of independence, impelled by Nehru’s vision, India saw a great flowering of scientific institutions. Among these was the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), and this is where M. S. Narasimhan grew from being a graduate student to a towering figure in Indian science. He distinguished himself as a mathematician, teacher and administrator. After his retirement from TIFR, he went on to a second innings as director of the Mathematics Department at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, where he built up a strong school in algebraic geometry. Narasimhan was an extraordinarily versatile researcher, contributing significantly to analysis, representation theory, differential geometry and algebraic geometry. Two related discoveries have in particular proved to be of great importance. The first is the application of stability in classifying a family of algebro-geometric objects, identifying the dominant part that parameterizes semistable objects, and then adding other components built out of extensions of smaller semistable objects. The second insight is that stable objects are characterized as those that satisfy non-linear partial differential equations, a discovery that foretold major developments 20 years later.