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2 unusual facts about William Thurston


William Thurston

The proof that every Haefliger structure on a manifold can be integrated to a foliation (this implies, in particular that every manifold with zero Euler characteristic admits a foliation of codimension one).

He received his bachelors degree from New College (now New College of Florida) in 1967.


Alternating knot

Menasco, applying Thurston's hyperbolization theorem for Haken manifolds, showed that any prime, non-split alternating link is hyperbolic, i.e. the link complement has a hyperbolic geometry, unless the link is a torus link.

Mathematics and fiber arts

The Issey Miyake Fall-Winter 2010–2011 ready-to-wear collection featured designs from a collaboration between fashion designer Dai Fujiwara and mathematician William Thurston.


see also