On January 11, 2019 (December 6, 2018 in the lunar calendar), the famous British mathematician Michael Atiyah died, claiming to prove the Riemann conjecture. On January 11, 2019 local time, the Royal Society (The Royal Society) issued an obituary: The famous British mathematician Sir Michael F. Atiyah (SirMichaelFrancisAtiyah) died on the same day at the age of 89. Obituary from the Royal Society The "godfather" of British mathematics who caused a sensation by claiming in September 2018 that he had proved the Riemann conjecture was a winner of both the Fields Medal and the Abel Prize. Although his proof of the Riemann conjecture presented at the subsequent Heidelberg Laureates Forum was not widely recognized, Atiyah made outstanding contributions to the field of mathematics, especially algebraic geometry, and is regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of our time. Sir Michael Atiyah Atiyah's early work was mainly in the field of algebraic geometry. Influenced by Alexander Grothendijk, he co-founded topological K-theory with Friedrich Hitzbruch, an important tool in algebraic topology, which was the first important generalized homology theory. His most famous work was in 1963, when he worked with Isadore Singer to prove the famous Atiyah-Singer index theorem for elliptic operators. This theorem has far-reaching applications in differential equations, complex geometry, functional analysis, and theoretical physics, and is widely regarded as one of the most important mathematical achievements of the 20th century. Further work in this area also includes his Atiyah-Botte fixed point theorem with Raoul Botte. After the 1970s, his interest turned to gauge field theory, focusing on the mathematical properties of instantons and magnetic monostats. For nearly 30 years, his research in low-dimensional topology and infinite-dimensional manifold geometry was greatly inspired by quantum field theory and string theory, and he was one of the leading advocates of this emerging field. Mathematical physicists such as Edward Witten were deeply influenced by him. He won the Fields Medal in 1966, the Copley Medal in 1988, and the Abel Prize with Singer in 2004. Atiyah served as President of the Royal Society (1990-1995), President of Trinity College, Cambridge University (1990-1997), President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2005-2008), and was elected as a foreign member of the Academy of Sciences. He was also an emeritus professor at the University of Edinburgh from 1997 until his death. His students included well-known mathematicians such as Graeme Siegel, Nigel Hitchin and Simon Donaldson. On September 24, 2018, Michael Atiyah claimed to prove the Riemann conjecture, but could not convince the mathematicians. Died on January 11, 2019 at the age of 89.