詹姆斯·西蒙斯1938—2024

而他在离世时，《福布斯》报道其身价达314亿美金，是世界上第51富有的人。

生平

1958年毕业于麻省理工学院，1962年在伯克利加州大学获得博士学位。他曾任教于麻省理工学院、哈佛大学和纽约州立大学石溪分校，并担任纽约州立大学石溪分校的数学系主任。陈-西蒙斯形式就是以陈省身和他命名的。1976年，他获得了美国数学会的奥斯瓦尔德·维布伦奖。

1982年，他转行投资业。他所创办的对冲基金获得了极大的成功，他也以74亿美元成为美国最富有人之一。他还是美国国家数学科学研究所的主要捐助人之一，也曾担任该研究所的理事会成员。

1994年成立西蒙斯基金会，是美国最大的慈善组织之一。

James Harris Simons (April 25, 1938 – May 10, 2024) was an American hedge fund manager, investor, mathematician, and philanthropist. At the time of his death, Simons's net worth was estimated to be $31.4 billion, making him the 55th-richest person in the world. He was the founder of Renaissance Technologies, a quantitative hedge fund based in East Setauket, New York. He and his fund are known to be quantitative investors, using mathematical models and algorithms to make investment gains from market inefficiencies. Due to the long-term aggregate investment returns of Renaissance and its Medallion Fund, Simons was called the "greatest investor on Wall Street" and more specifically "the most successful hedge fund manager of all time".

Simons developed the Chern–Simons form (with Shiing-Shen Chern), and contributed to the development of string theory by providing a theoretical framework to combine geometry and topology with quantum field theory.

In 1994, Simons and his wife, Marilyn, founded the Simons Foundation to support research in mathematics and fundamental sciences. The foundation is the top benefactor of Stony Brook University, Marilyn's alma mater, and is a major contributor to his alma maters, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley. Simons was a member of the boards of the Stony Brook Foundation, the MIT Corporation, and the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute in Berkeley, and chaired the boards of Math for America, the Simons Foundation, and Renaissance Technologies. In 2023, the Simons Foundation gave $500 million to Stony Brook University, the second-largest donation to a public university in U.S. history. In 2016, the International Astronomical Union named asteroid 6618 Jimsimons, which Clyde Tombaugh discovered in 1936, after Simons in honor of his contributions to mathematics and philanthropy.

Death

Simons died peacefully in New York City on May 10, 2024, at age 86. He was active in the work of his foundation until the end of his life.