Person
Bartnik, Robert Andrzej (1956 - 2022)
FAA
- Born
- 1 February 1956
- Died
- 12 November 2022
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia - Occupation
- Mathematician
Summary
Robert Bartnik was a mathematician widely recognised for his contributions to the application of geometric analysis to mathematical problems arising in Einstein's theory of general relativity. Acknowledged as an original researcher, he one of the few responsible for introducing the new techniques that reshaped the mathematical landscape. He was noted for a proof that the ADM mass is a geometric invariant; the introduction and initial analysis of the Bartnik quasi-local mass; and the discovery of static, particle-like solutions to the Einstein-Yang-Mills equations (now known as the Bartnik-McKinnon solutions). With Leon Simon he worked on solving the Dirichlet problem for prescribed mean curvature, in the setting of spacelike hypersurfaces of Minkowski space.. After doctoral and post-doctoral studies in the U.S.A., Bartnik returned to Australia in 1985. He was Research Fellow at the Australian National University until 1991 before moving to the Universities of New South Wales, New England and Canberra. In 2005 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics at Monash University. The School of Mathematical Sciences at Monash awards the Robert Bartnik Visiting Fellowship.
Details
Chronology
- 1980
- Education - MSc, University of Melbourne
- 1980 - 1981
- Career position - Visiting scholar, Institute for Advanced Study. Australian National University
- 1983
- Education - PhD, Princeton University
- 1985 - 1991
- Career position - Research Fellow, Australian National University
- 2004 - 2022
- Award - Fellow, Australian Academy of Science
- 2005 - 2016
- Career position - Professor of Mathematics, Monash University
- 2016
- Life event - Retired
Related entries
Colleague
Published resources
Books
- Bartnik, Robert: edited by Chruściel, Piotr T., Isenberg, James A. and Yau, Shing-Tung, Selected works of Robert A. Bartnik (Somerville, MA: International Press Service Association, 2021), 836 pp. Details
Journal Articles
- Bartnik, Robert, 'Existence of maximal surfaces in asymptotically flat spacetimes', Communications in mathematical physics, 94 (2) (1984), 155-75, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01209300. Details
- Bartnik, Robert and Leon, Simon, 'Spacelike hypersurfaces with prescribed boundary values and mean curvature', Communications in mathematical physics, 87 (1982), 131-52, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01211061. Details
- Bartnik, Robert and McKinnon, John, 'Particle like solutions of the Einstein -Yang-Mills equations .', Physical review letters, 61 (2) (1988), 141-4, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.61.141. Details
- Corvino, Justin, 'A short note on the Bartnik mass', Pure and applied mathematics quarterly, 15 (2) (2019), 827-38, https://intlpress.com/site/pub/files/_fulltext/journals/pamq/2019/0015/0003/PAMQ-2019-0015-0003-a002.pdf. Details
- Oliynyk, Todd, Chruściel, Piotr T., Huisken, Gerhard and Simon, Leon, 'Robert Bartnik', Gazette of the Australian Mathematical Society, 52 (1) (2025), 26-30. Details
Helen Cohn
Created: 13 May 2025