James Harris "Jim" Simons, grandson of a shoe factory owner in Massachusetts, received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1958 year and received a doctorate, also in mathematics, at the University of Berkeley in 1962 year aged 23 years. With 1961 on 1964 he taught mathematics at MIT and Harvard. In 1964-1968 he held a research position in the Communications Research Division of the Institute for Defense Analysis. IN 1968 year he became the head of the department of mathematics at Stony Brook University. Under him, the university entered the top ten in the United States..
IN 1976 Simons received the Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry from the American Mathematical Society for his work on multidimensional surfaces, minimizing the area, and characteristic forms. He proved Bernstein's conjecture up to the dimension 8, and also improved the regularity properties of Wendell Fleming's result on the generalized Plateau problem. IN 1978 year Simons left academic science in order to, to establish an investment fund.
IN 1982 Simons founded Renaissance Technologies Corporation in New York, private investment firm to manage more than 30 billions of US dollars. Simons still stands as president at the head of this firm., considered the most successful hedge fund in the world.
For more than two decades, the investment company Renaissance Technologies, trading on exchanges around the world, is at the forefront of mathematical and economic analysis. She uses computer models to predict price changes for liquid financial instruments.. These models use so much data, how much does it get to collect, Then they look for non-random components, based on which predictions can be made. Despite, that scientists are engaged in the development of models, concrete actions of MTS are better described by the concept of "black box". In addition, the company's employees are actively involved in disorienting and hiding details about the work of the fund..
Renaissance employs over 60 World-class scientists, including mathematicians, Physicists, astrophysicists and statisticians, from a wide range of countries (for example, Japan and Cuba). This allows you to receive income tens of percent higher, what Bruce Kovner gets, George Soros, Paul Tudor Jones, Louis Bacon, Mark Kingdon or Monroe Trout. Nevertheless, from the official data it is seen, that the fund went negative before 7 % at the beginning of the Mortgage Crisis 2007 of the year, however, he was able to straighten out by the end of August to +0.7 %. Renaissance launched RIEF, designed to manage capital in 100 billion dollars, that is, the largest that ever existed.
Simons was named Financial Scientist of the Year (FEOY, Financial Engineer of the Year) International Association of Financial Engineering (IAFE, International Association of Financial Engineers) in 2006 year. He earned about 2,8 billion dollars in 2007 year, $1.7 billion c 2006, $1.5 billion c 2005 (highest income for hedge fund managers that year), And $670 million in 2004. With an estimated $ 5.5 billion fortune, Simons, according to Forbes magazine, in 2007 year he took 214 place in the world and 57 place in America. The Financial Times named him in 2006 year "the smartest of billionaires".
With the help of the acquired capital, Simons participates in charity. He supports research projects, Conferences & Symposia. Simons and his second wife, Marilyn Horis Simons (Marilyn Hawrys Simons), founded the Simons Foundation, a charitable organization, which supports educational and medical projects, in addition to research. In Memory of His Son Paul, he created the Park of Avalon, nature reserve at stony brook. 34-summer Paul died in an accident in 1996 while cycling around the house. Another Son, 23-summer Nick, drowned in 2003 during your trip to Bali (Indonesia). Nick worked in Nepal and Simons made a great contribution to the Nepalese health care system through the specially created Nick Simons Institute. James also founded Math for America ("Mathematics for America").
At the beginning 2006 year he headed the group of directors of Renaissance Technologies Corporation and the Brookhaven Science Association and closed a hole in the budget of Brookhaven National Laboratory the size of 13 million. Dollars, which prevented the discovery of the Heavy Ion Collider. also in 2006 Simons donated $25 million. Stony Brook University through the Stony Brook Foundation, the money goes to the department of physics and mathematics at the university. 27 February 2008 Governor Eliot Spitzer Announces 60 Million Donation From The Simons Foundation To Founding The Simons Center For Geometry And Physics ("Simons Center for Geometry and Physics") in Stony Brook, largest monetary gift to a public university in New York State history.
The family foundation has spent in recent years 38 million dollars, to find the cause of autism, and plans to spend more 100 million, what will be the largest investment in autism research. At the same time, Simons establishes personal control over all budget spending.. Simons also donated his family's DNA for study. (His daughter suffers from autism), and also helped in solving some research problems. When MIT asked for money to study the brain, James set a condition, that the project will focus on autism and include specialists of his choice. 11 June 2003 The Simons Foundation hosts a symposium on autism research. It presented the results for the causes of autism, genetic mapping of autism and biological mechanisms, observed in autistic patients. Among those attending were David Amaral and Dr. Erik Kurchesne, Nathaniel Heinz, Tom Inzel, Catherine Lord, Fred Wolkmar and Paul Gringard. The fund gave 10 million to two researchers at Yale University's Center for Childhood Diseases to identify genetic influences on autism.
In Simons 5 Children, he lives with his wife in Manhattan and Long Island. Simons is a trustee at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Institute for Special Studies, Rockefeller University and Mathematical Research Institute. He is also a member of the MIT Committee. Simons avoids publicity and rarely gives interviews, while quoting the donkey Benjamin from the story "Animal Farm" for an explanation: “God gave me a tail, to shrug off flies. But I would rather not have a tail and not have flies. ".
