Shoshichi Kobayashi Scientist

Shoshichi Kobayashi (小林昭七, Kobayashi Shōshichi, born on January 4, 1932, in Kōfu, Japan, died on 29 August 2012) was a Japanese mathematician. He was a brother of electrical engineer and computer scientist Hisashi Kobayashi. His research interests were in Riemannian and complex manifolds, transformation groups of geometric structures, and Lie algebras.He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1953. In 1956, he earned a Ph.D. from the University of Washington under Carl B. Allendoerfer'>Carl B. Allendoerfer. His dissertation was Theory of Connections. He then spent two years at the Institute for Advanced Study and two years at MIT. He joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley in 1962 as an assistant professor, was awarded tenure the following year, and was promoted to full professor in 1966.Kobayashi served as chairman of the Berkeley Mathematics Dept. for a three year term from 1978 to 1981 and for the 1992 Fall semester. He chose early retirement under the VERIP plan in 1994.The two-volume book Foundations of differential geometry (1963-1969), which he coauthored with Katsumi Nomizu, has been known for its wide influence.