Kunihiko Kodaira

Kunihiko Kodaira, who died on 26 July 1997, was the outstandingJapanese mathematician of the post-war period, his fame establishedby the award of the Fields Medal at the Amsterdam Congress in1954. He was born on 16 March 1915, the son of an agricultural scientistwho at one time was Vice Minister of Agriculture in the JapaneseGovernment and had also played an active role in agriculturaldevelopments in South America. Kodaira studied at Tokyo University,taking degrees in both mathematics and physics. From 1944 to1951 he was an associate professor of physics at the University.His PhD thesis was published in the Annals of Mathematics 18],and it immediately attracted international attention. Essentiallythis filled a significant lacuna in the basic theorem of W.V. D. Hodge on harmonic integrals. Kodaira had worked on thisfor many years but, because of the war, his research was carriedout in isolation from the international community and did notbecome known until much later. Hermann Weyl, who had been a keen supporter of Hodge's work,realised the importance of Kodaira's thesis, and arranged forhim to come to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princetonin 1949. This was the start of Kodaira's 18-year residence inthe United States, a fruitful period which saw the full blossomingof his research, much of it in collaboration with Donald Spencer.Kodaira spent many years at Princeton, divided between the Instituteand the University, but the years 1961–67 were more unsettled,seeing him successively at Harvard, Johns Hopkins and finallyStanford. In 1967 he returned to a professorship at the Universityof Tokyo, where he remained until the normal retiring age. From1975 to 1985 he worked at Gakushuin University, where retirementrestrictions did not apply.