Heisuke Hironaka (広中平祐) (born
1931) is celebrated for proving in
1964 that singularities of algebraic varieties admit resolutions in characteristic zero. This means that any
projective variety[?] can be replaced by a similar one (i.e. birationally equivalent) which has no singularities. For this theorem he won the
Fields Medal in 1970. He was for many years a professor of mathematics at
Harvard but currently lives in
Japan where he is greatly respected and influential. He has been active in raising funds for causes such as mathematical education.
- Hironaka biography (http://www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Hironaka.html)