Louis Antoine (23 November 1888 – 8 February 1971) was a French mathematician who discovered

Antoine's necklace In mathematics Antoine's necklace is a topological embedding of the Cantor set in 3-dimensional Euclidean space, whose complement is not simply connected. It also serves as a counterexample to the claim that all Cantor spaces are ambiently homeomo ...

, which J. W. Alexander used to construct Antoine's horned sphere. He lost his eyesight in the first World War, at the age of 29.

Early life

Louis Antoine was born in

Mirecourt Mirecourt () is a commune in the Vosges department in Grand Est in northeastern France. Mirecourt is known for lace-making and the manufacture of musical instruments, particularly those of the Violin family. Inhabitants are called Mirecurtiens. G ...

. He studied at the

lycee In France, secondary education is in two stages: * ''Collèges'' () cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 15. * ''Lycées'' () provide a three-year course of further secondary education for children between ...

in Nancy. His father was a director of a manufacturer of matchsticks. After this, he studied at the Collège de Compiègne. He was awarded the bacculareat in Latin and science in 1905 and the bacculareat in mathematics in 1906. He then attended

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 ...

. Once he graduated, he became a mathematics teacher the Lycée de Dijon in Saint-Cyr. He married his wife, Marguerite Rouselle in 1918. After the declaration of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Antoine served as a reserve lieutenant in the 72nd Infantry Regiment of Amiens, and later a commander on the machine gun of the 151st Infantry Regiment. In 1917, he lost his sight as a result of bullets hitting his eyes. After the loss of his vision,

Henri Lebesgue Henri Léon Lebesgue (; June 28, 1875 – July 26, 1941) was a French mathematician known for his theory of integration, which was a generalization of the 17th-century concept of integration—summing the area between an axis and the curve of ...

suggested that Antoine study two- and three-dimensional

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformations, such ...

as it could be studied without the use of his sight.

Work

In 1919, Antoine began his doctorate in mathematics at the

University of Strasbourg The University of Strasbourg (french: Université de Strasbourg, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. The French university traces its history to the ea ...

. Antoine was assisted by his friends during his studies, who produced

braille Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are Blindness, blind, Deafblindness, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on Paper embossing, embossed paper ...

copies of mathematical papers. Antoine developed a system of braille mathematical notation, with the assistance of a student at École Normale Supérieure. Antoine discovered Antoine's necklace in 1921. He submitted his thesis in 1921. In 1922, Antoine became an assistant lecturer at the Faculty of Sciences in

Rennes Rennes (; br, Roazhon ; Gallo: ''Resnn''; ) is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France at the confluence of the Ille and the Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department ...

. He subsequently became a professor of Pure Mathematics at Rennes in 1925.

Later life and death

Antoine began to experience heart disease in 1957. He subsequently retired from his professorship. He was elected to the

Académie des Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at the ...

in 1961. He died in 1971 after fracturing his neck.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Antoine, Louis 1888 births 1971 deaths People from Mirecourt École Normale Supérieure alumni 20th-century French mathematicians French blind people Blind academics