Robert C. Hermann (April 28, 1931 – February 10, 2020) was an American mathematician and mathematical physicist.  In the 1960s Hermann worked on elementary particle physics and quantum field theory, and published books which revealed the interconnections between vector bundles on Riemannian manifolds and gauge theory in physics, before these interconnections became "common knowledge" among physicists in the 1970s.

Biography
Born in Brooklyn, Hermann studied in Paris and at Princeton University, where he attended lectures by Charles Ehresmann and where in 1955 under Donald Spencer he received his PhD with thesis The Differential geometry of homogeneous spaces. He was a Benjamin Peirce Instructor at Harvard University in 1957, and researcher at MIT Lincoln Laboratory 1959 to 61 when he lectured at University of California Berkeley. In 1962 he became an associate professor at Northwestern University and was raised to full professor. In 1967 he taught at University of California Santa Cruz until moving to Rutgers University (1970 to 75). Subsequently he did research primarily with financial support from the Ames Research Center of NASA. In the academic year 1969/1970 he was at the Institute for Advanced Study.

Following the French school of Élie Cartan, Hermann published numerous books on differential geometry and Lie group theory and their applications to differential equations, integrable systems, control theory, and physics. Most of these books were published in Brookline, Massachusetts by Math Sci Press, which he founded. Two series were published: a green series "Interdisciplinary Mathematics" and a blue series "Lie Groups: History, Frontiers and Applications".

The blue series considered history of differential geometry and Lie theory, and edited, with extensive new commentary, the work of Sophus Lie, Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro and Tullio Levi-Civita, Felix Klein's Vorlesungen über Mathematikgeschichte, Élie Cartan, Georges Valiron and the contributions to invariant theory by David Hilbert.

Robert Hermann died on February 10, 2020.

Early works 
 1966: Lie Groups for Physicists, Benjamin
 1968: Differential geometry and the calculus of variations, Academic Press, second edition, Brookline 1977
 1969: Fourier analysis on groups and partial wave analysis, Benjamin
 1970: Lie algebras and quantum mechanics, Benjamin
 1970: Lectures in mathematical physics, Benjamin
 1970: Vector Bundles in mathematical physics, Benjamin 1970
 1973: Geometry, Physics and Systems, Dekker
 1973: Differential geometric methods and ideas in physics and engineering, Rutgers University Press
 1974: Physical Aspects of Lie group theory, Montreal, Presse Universitaire de Montreal

Published by Math Sci Press, Brookline, Massachusetts 
 1973, 1977: Topics in the mathematics of quantum mechanics
 1973: Algebraic topics in systems theory
 1973: General algebraic ideas
 1973: Topics in General Relativity
 1973: Energy-Momentum Tensors
 1973: Linear and tensor algebra
 1974: Spinors, Clifford and Cayley Algebras
 1974: Linear systems and introductory algebraic geometry
 1974: Geometric structure theory of systems-control theory and physics
 1975: Gauge fields and Cartan–Ehresmann Connections
 1977: The geometry of non-linear differential equations, Bäcklund transformations, and solitons
 1977: (with Clyde Martin): Algebro-geometric and Lie theoretic techniques in systems theory
 1977: Toda lattices, cosymplectic manifolds, Bäcklund transformations, and kinks
 1977: Quantum and fermion differential geometry
 1978: (with contributions by Frank Estabrook, Hugo Wahlquist) Yang–Mills, Kaluza–Klein, and the Einstein program
 1979: Cartanian geometry, nonlinear waves, and control theory, Brookline, 2 parts: Part A, Part B 1980 (Cartanian meant in the sense of Élie Cartan)
 1980: (with Norman Hurt) Quantum statistical mechanics and Lie group harmonic analysis
 1984: Topics in the geometric theory of linear systems
 1984: Topics in the geometric theory of integrable dynamical systems
 1988: Topics in physical geometry
 1991: Geometric computing science – first steps
 1991: Geometric structures in nonlinear systems, Brookline 1991 (including hydrodynamics, deformation structures, with list of publications by Hermann to 1991)
 1992: Constrained mechanics and Lie theory
 1993: Lie–Cartan–Ehresmann Theory
 1994: Lie-theoretic ordinary differential equations, numerical analysis, mechanics, and differential systems
 1994: C–O–R generalized functions, current algebras and control

References

External links 
 Books from Math-sci Press
 
 Peter Cains & 7 others (2021) Memorial for Robert Hermann, Notices of the American Mathematical Society

20th-century American mathematicians
21st-century American mathematicians
20th-century American physicists
1931 births
2020 deaths
American textbook writers
American historians of mathematics