Jacqueline Lelong-Ferrand (17 February 1918,
Alès
Alès (; oc, Alès) is a Communes of France, commune in the Gard Departments of France, department in the Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie regions of France, region in southern France. It is one of the Subprefectures in France, su ...
, France – 26 April 2014,
Sceaux, France) was a French mathematician who worked on
conformal representation theory
Representation theory is a branch of mathematics that studies abstract algebraic structures by ''representing'' their elements as linear transformations of vector spaces, and studies modules over these abstract algebraic structures. In essen ...
,
potential theory
In mathematics and mathematical physics, potential theory is the study of harmonic functions.
The term "potential theory" was coined in 19th-century physics when it was realized that two fundamental forces of nature known at the time, namely gravi ...
, and
Riemannian manifold
In differential geometry, a Riemannian manifold or Riemannian space , so called after the German mathematician Bernhard Riemann, is a real manifold, real, smooth manifold ''M'' equipped with a positive-definite Inner product space, inner product ...
s. She taught at universities in Caen, Lille, and Paris.
Education and career
Ferrand was born in
Alès
Alès (; oc, Alès) is a Communes of France, commune in the Gard Departments of France, department in the Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie regions of France, region in southern France. It is one of the Subprefectures in France, su ...
, the daughter of a classics teacher, and went to secondary school in
Nîmes
Nîmes ( , ; oc, Nimes ; Latin: ''Nemausus'') is the prefecture of the Gard department in the Occitanie region of Southern France. Located between the Mediterranean Sea and Cévennes, the commune of Nîmes has an estimated population of 148,5 ...
.
In 1936 the
École Normale Supérieure
École may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* École, Savoi ...
began admitting women, and she was one of the first to apply and be admitted. In 1939 she and
Roger Apéry
Roger Apéry (; 14 November 1916, Rouen – 18 December 1994, Caen) was a French mathematician most remembered for Apéry's theorem, which states that is an irrational number. Here, denotes the Riemann zeta function.
Biography
Apéry was born ...
placed first in the mathematics
agrégation
In France, the ''agrégation'' () is a competitive examination for civil service in the French public education system. Candidates for the examination, or ''agrégatifs'', become ''agrégés'' once they are admitted to the position of ''professe ...
; she began teaching at a girls' school in
Sèvres
Sèvres (, ) is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department, Île-de-France region. The commune, which had a population of 23,251 as of 2018, is known for i ...
, while continuing to do mathematics research under the supervision of
Arnaud Denjoy
Arnaud Denjoy (; 5 January 1884 – 21 January 1974) was a French mathematician.
Biography
Denjoy was born in Auch, Gers. His contributions include work in harmonic analysis and differential equations. His integral was the first to be able t ...
, publishing three papers in 1941 and defending a doctoral thesis in 1942.
In 1943 she won the Girbal-Baral Prize of the
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific me ...
, and obtained a faculty position at the
University of Bordeaux
The University of Bordeaux (French: ''Université de Bordeaux'') is a public university based in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France.
It has several campuses in the cities and towns of Bordeaux, Dax, Gradignan, Périgueux, Pessac, and Ta ...
. She moved to the
University of Caen
The University of Caen Normandy (French: ''Université de Caen Normandie''), also known as Unicaen, is a public university in Caen, France.
History
The institution was founded in 1432 by John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, the first rector ...
in 1945, was given a chair at the
University of Lille
The University of Lille (french: Université de Lille, abbreviated as ULille, UDL or univ-lille) is a French public research university based in Lille, Hauts-de-France. It has its origins in the University of Douai (1559), and resulted from the m ...
in 1948, and in 1956 moved to the
University of Paris
, image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of Arms
, latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis
, motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin)
, mottoeng = Here and a ...
as a full professor. She retired in 1984.
[Biographies of Women Mathematicians](_blank)
Agnes Scott College
Agnes Scott College is a private women's liberal arts college in Decatur, Georgia. The college enrolls approximately 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The college is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church and is considered one of the ...
; accessed 5 May 2014.[.]
Contributions
Ferrand had nearly 100 mathematical publications, including ten books,
and was active in mathematical research into her late 70s.
One of her accomplishments, in 1971, was to prove the
compactness
In mathematics, specifically general topology, compactness is a property that seeks to generalize the notion of a closed and bounded subset of Euclidean space by making precise the idea of a space having no "punctures" or "missing endpoints", i ...
of the group of conformal mappings of a non-spherical compact
Riemannian manifold
In differential geometry, a Riemannian manifold or Riemannian space , so called after the German mathematician Bernhard Riemann, is a real manifold, real, smooth manifold ''M'' equipped with a positive-definite Inner product space, inner product ...
, resolving a conjecture of
André Lichnerowicz
André Lichnerowicz (January 21, 1915, Bourbon-l'Archambault – December 11, 1998, Paris) was a noted France, French Differential geometry and topology, differential geometer and Mathematical physics, mathematical physicist of Poland, Polish desc ...
, and on the basis of this work she became an invited speaker at the 1974
International Congress of Mathematicians
The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU).
The Fields Medals, the Nevanlinna Prize (to be rename ...
in
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
.
Personal life
She married mathematician
Pierre Lelong
Pierre Lelong (14 March 1912 Paris – 12 October 2011)
at the académie des sciences
in 1947, taking his surname alongside hers in her subsequent publications
until their separation in 1977.
References
Links
ChronoMath, une chronologie des MATHÉMATIQUES; accessed 5 May 2014
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferrand, Jacqueline
1918 births
2014 deaths
École Normale Supérieure alumni
French mathematicians
Women mathematicians
People from Alès
20th-century French women scientists