Atiyah helped to end a period of estrangement between physics and math, which Freeman Dyson (who at 95 is safely referred to as a living legend) talked about at the symposium.

The relationship between physics and mathematics goes back to the beginning of both subjects; as the fields have advanced, this relationship has gotten more and more tangled, a complicated tapestry.

Secret Link Uncovered Between Pure Math and Physics An eminent mathematician reveals that his advances in the study of millennia-old mathematical questions owe to concepts derived from physics.

It sounds a lot like mathematics, and in many of the discussions, it sounds very little like physics. But the key is to connect what these mathematical equations predict with physical observables.

Isadore Singer, who unified large areas of mathematics and physics in becoming one of the most important mathematicians of his era, died on Thursday at his home in Boxborough, Mass. He was 96.