Raoul Bott (September 24, 1923 – December 20, 2005) was a Hungarian-American mathematician renowned for his groundbreaking work in topology, differential geometry, and algebraic topology. Born in Budapest, Hungary, he emigrated to the United States and taught at Carnegie Mellon University and Harvard University. Bott is best known for the Bott periodicity theorem, which revealed periodic patterns in homotopy groups, profoundly impacting mathematics and theoretical physics. He also advanced Morse theory and developed the Bott–Samelson theorem. His contributions extended to string theory and quantum field theory. Bott received the National Medal of Science in 1964 and the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 1987. He died in 2005 at age 82.
