Frederick J. Almgren, Jr.

Frederick Justin Almgren, Jr. (July 3, 1933, in Birmingham, Alabama – February 5, 1997, in Princeton, New Jersey) was a mathematician working in geometric measure theory.

He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1974. Between 1963 and 1992 he was a frequent visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

He wrote one of the longest papers in mathematics, proving what is now called the Almgren regularity theorem: the singular set of an m-dimensional mass-minimizing hypersurface has dimension at most m−2: he also developed the concept of varifold, first defined by L. C. Young in (Young 1951), and proposed them as generalized solutions to Plateau's problem, in order to deal with the problem even when a concept of orientation is missing. He played also an important role in the founding of The Geometry Center.

He was a student of Herbert Federer, one of the founders of geometric measure theory, and was the advisor and husband (as his second wife) of Jean Taylor. His daughter, Ann S. Almgren, is an applied mathematician who works on computational simulations in astrophysics.

•  . A set of mimeographed notes where Frederick J. Almgren, Jr. introduces the term "varifold" for the first time.
•  . The first widely circulated book describing the concept of a varifold and its applications to the Plateau's problem.
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•  . The second edition of the book (Almgren 1966).