Robert Hermann (born April 28, 1931 in Brooklyn) is 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.
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 taught at Rutgers University, which he left in 1975 and then 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 the Mathematical Science Press, which Hermann himself founded. He also worked on the history of differential geometry and Lie group 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.
At some point in his career, Hermann became a creationist. He has written papers in which he claims to have discovered a theory of everything based on nonstandard analysis. On his website, he claims that his theory is intended as a model and as such is consistent with his Christian beliefs and refutes all claims of scientists that religious beliefs are irrational.
Lie groups for physicists, Benjamin 1966Fourier analysis on groups and partial wave analysis, Benjamin 1969Lie algebras and quantum mechanics, Benjamin 1970Lectures in mathematical physics, Benjamin 1970Vector Bundles in mathematical physics, Benjamin 1970Geometry, Physics and Systems, Dekker 1973Differential geometry and the calculus of variations, Academic Press 1968, 2nd edn, Brookline 1977Differential geometric methods and ideas in physics and engineering, Rutgers University Press, 1973Physical Aspects of Lie group theory, Montreal, Presse Universitaire de Montreal, 1974In the Mathematical Science Press, Brookline, Massachusetts:
Topics in the mathematics of quantum mechanics, Brookline, 1973, 1977with Clyde Martin: Algebro-geometric and Lie theoretic techniques in control theory, Brookline 1977Algebraic topics in systems theory, Brookline 1973General algebraic ideas, Brookline 1973Topics in General Relativity, Brookline 1973Energy-Momentum Tensors, Brookline 1973Cartanian geometry, nonlinear waves, and control theory, Brookline, 2 parts: Part A 1979, Part B 1980 (Cartanian meant in the sense of Élie Cartan)Geometric structure theory of systems-control theory and physics, Brookline 1974Constrained mechanics and Lie theory, Brookline 1992Topics in the geometric theory of linear systems, Brookline 1984Yang–Mills, Kaluza–Klein, and the Einstein program, Brookline 1978 (with contributions by Frank Estabrook, Hugo Wahlquist)Topics in the geometric theory of integrable dynamical systems, Brookline 1984Linear and tensor algebra, Brookline 1973Gauge fields and Cartan–Ehresmann Connections, Brookline 1975Topics in physical geometry, Brookline 1988with Norman Hurt: Quantum statistical mechanics and Lie group harmonic analysis, Brookline 1980Toda lattices, cosymplectic manifolds, Bäcklund transformations, and kinks, Brookline 1977The geometry of non-linear differential equations, Bäcklund transformations, and solitons, Brookline 1977Geometric structures in nonlinear systems, Brookline 1991 (including hydrodynamics, deformation structures, with list of publications by Hermann to 1991)Spinors, Clifford and Cayley Algebras, Brookline 1974Linear systems and introductory algebraic geometry, Brookline 1974Lie–Cartan–Ehresmann Theory, Brookline 1993Lie-theoretic ordinary differential equations, numerical analysis, mechanics, and differential systems, Brooklyn 1994C–O–R generalized functions, current algebras and control, Brookline 1994Geometric computing science – first steps, Brookline 1991Quantum and fermion differential geometry, Brookline 1977