Victor Kac

Victor Gershevich Kac
Victor Gershevich Kac
Born	December 19, 1943; Buguruslan, Orenburg Oblast, Russian SFSR
Alma mater	Moscow State University (MS); Moscow State University (PhD)
Known for	Kac–Moody algebra; Weyl–Kac character formula; Classification of Lie superalgebras; Kac–Weisfeiler conjectures; Kac determinant formula for Virasoro algebra;
Awards	Sloan Research Fellowship (1981); Medal of the Collège de France (1981); Guggenheim Fellowship (1986); Wigner Medal (1996); American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2007); National Academy of Sciences (2013); Steele Prize (2015);
	Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	MIT
Thesis	Simple Irreducible Graded Lie Algebras of Finite Growth (1968)
Doctoral advisor	Èrnest Borisovich Vinberg

Victor Gershevich (Grigorievich) Kac (Russian: Виктор Гершевич (Григорьевич) Кац; born 19 December 1943) is a Soviet and American mathematician at MIT, known for his work in representation theory. He co-discovered Kac–Moody algebras, and used the Weyl–Kac character formula for them to reprove the Macdonald identities. He classified the finite-dimensional simple Lie superalgebras, and found the Kac determinant formula for the Virasoro algebra. He is also known for the Kac–Weisfeiler conjectures with Boris Weisfeiler.