Henri Cartan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Henri Cartan | |
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| Born | July 8, 1904 Nancy, France |
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| Nationality |  France |
| Occupation | Mathematician |
| Known for | Algebraic topology Bourbaki |
| Spouse | Nicole Antoinette Weiss |
| Parents | Élie Cartan Marie-Louise Bianconi |
Henri Cartan (born July 8, 1904) is a son of Élie Cartan, and is, as his father was, a distinguished and influential French mathematician.
Cartan studied at the Lycée Hoche in Versailles, then at the ENS. He held academic positions at a number of French universities, spending the bulk of his working life in Paris.
Henri Cartan is known for work in algebraic topology, in particular on cohomology operations, killing homotopy groups and group cohomology. His seminar in Paris in the years after 1945 covered ground on several complex variables, sheaf theory, spectral sequences and homological algebra, in a way that deeply influenced Jean-Pierre Serre, Armand Borel, Alexander Grothendieck and Frank Adams, amongst others of the leading lights of the younger generation. The number of his official students was small, but includes Adrien Douady, Roger Godement, Max Karoubi, Jean-Pierre Serre and René Thom.
Cartan also was a founding member of the Bourbaki group and one of its most active participants. His book with Samuel Eilenberg Homological Algebra (1956) was an important text, treating the subject with a moderate level of abstraction and category theory.
Henri Cartan received numerous honours and awards. Since 1974 he has been a member of the French Academy of Sciences. He was a foreign member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, Royal Society of London, Russian Academy of Sciences, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, United States National Academy of Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences and other academies and societies.
[edit] References
- O'Connor, John J. & Robertson, Edmund F., “Henri Cartan”, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
[edit] External links
- 1999 Interview with Henri Cartan in the Notices of the AMS
- Henri Cartan at l'Académie des Sciences
- Henri Cartan at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- Gazette des Mathématiciens 100, April 2004: 100th Birthday of Henri Cartan
