Pierre Samuel (12 September 1921 – 23 August 2009
/ref>) was a French

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

, known for his work in

commutative algebra Commutative algebra, first known as ideal theory, is the branch of algebra that studies commutative rings, their ideals, and modules over such rings. Both algebraic geometry and algebraic number theory build on commutative algebra. Prominent ...

and its applications to

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics, classically studying zeros of multivariate polynomials. Modern algebraic geometry is based on the use of abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, for solving geometrical ...

. The two-volume work ''Commutative Algebra'' that he wrote with

Oscar Zariski , birth_date = , birth_place = Kobrin, Russian Empire , death_date = , death_place = Brookline, Massachusetts, United States , nationality = American , field = Mathematics , work_institutions = ...

is a classic. Other books of his covered

projective geometry In mathematics, projective geometry is the study of geometric properties that are invariant with respect to projective transformations. This means that, compared to elementary Euclidean geometry, projective geometry has a different setting, pro ...

and

algebraic number theory Algebraic number theory is a branch of number theory that uses the techniques of abstract algebra to study the integers, rational numbers, and their generalizations. Number-theoretic questions are expressed in terms of properties of algebraic ob ...

Early life and education

Samuel studied at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly in Paris before attending the École Normale Supérieure where he studied for his Agrégé de mathematique. He received his Master of Arts and then a Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1947, under the supervision of Oscar Zariski, with a thesis "Ultrafilters and Compactification of Uniform Spaces".

Career

Samuel ran a

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

seminar during the 1960s, and became Professeur émérite at the

Université Paris-Sud Paris-Sud University (French: ''Université Paris-Sud''), also known as University of Paris — XI (or as Université d'Orsay before 1971), was a French research university distributed among several campuses in the southern suburbs of Paris, in ...

(Orsay). His lectures on unique factorization domains published by the

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is a public deemed research university located in Mumbai, India that is dedicated to basic research in mathematics and the sciences. It is a Deemed University and works under the umbrella of the D ...

played a significant role in computing the

Picard group In mathematics, the Picard group of a ringed space ''X'', denoted by Pic(''X''), is the group of isomorphism classes of invertible sheaves (or line bundles) on ''X'', with the group operation being tensor product. This construction is a global ve ...

of a

Zariski surface In algebraic geometry, a branch of mathematics, a Zariski surface is a surface over a field of characteristic ''p'' > 0 such that there is a dominant inseparable map of degree ''p'' from the projective plane to the surface. In particu ...

via the work of Jeffrey Lang and collaborators. The method was inspired by earlier work of

Nathan Jacobson Nathan Jacobson (October 5, 1910 – December 5, 1999) was an American mathematician. Biography Born Nachman Arbiser in Warsaw, Jacobson emigrated to America with his family in 1918. He graduated from the University of Alabama in 1930 and was awar ...

and Pierre Cartier another outstanding member of the

Bourbaki group Nicolas Bourbaki () is the collective pseudonym of a group of mathematicians, predominantly French alumni of the École normale supérieure - PSL (ENS). Founded in 1934–1935, the Bourbaki group originally intended to prepare a new textbook in ...

Nicholas Katz Nicholas Michael Katz (born December 7, 1943) is an American mathematician, working in arithmetic geometry, particularly on ''p''-adic methods, monodromy and moduli problems, and number theory. He is currently a professor of Mathematics at P ...

related this to the concept of ''p''-curvature of a connection introduced by Alexander Grothendieck. He was a member of the

, and filmed some of their meetings. A French television documentary on Bourbaki broadcast some of this footage in 2000. Samuel was also active in issues of

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...

, including concerns about

environmental degradation Environmental degradation is the deterioration of the environment (biophysical), environment through depletion of resources such as quality of air, water and soil; the destruction of ecosystems; habitat destruction; the extinction of wildlife; an ...

(where he was influenced by Grothendieck), and

arms control Arms control is a term for international restrictions upon the development, production, stockpiling, proliferation and usage of small arms, conventional weapons, and weapons of mass destruction. Arms control is typically exercised through the u ...

.Pierre Samuel Letter to the American Mathematical Society
/ref> He died in Paris in August 2009. His doctoral students include Lucien Szpiro and

Daniel Lazard Daniel Lazard (born December 10, 1941) is a French mathematician and computer scientist. He is emeritus professor at the University of Paris VI. Career Daniel Lazard was born in Carpentras, in southern France. After his undergraduate educati ...

Awards and honors

In 1958 he was an invited speaker (''Relations d'équivalence en géométrie algébrique'') at the ICM in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

. In 1969 he won the

Lester R. Ford Award Lester is an ancient Anglo-Saxon surname and given name. Notable people and characters with the name include: People Given name * Lester Bangs (1948–1982), American music critic * Lester W. Bentley (1908–1972), American artist from Wisc ...

Works

* * * with Oscar Zariski: * with Oscar Zariski: * ''Anneaux factoriels'', Publicaçoes da Sociedade de Matematica de São Paulo, 1962 * * ''Écologie: détente ou cycle infernal'', Union générale d'éditions, Collection 10-18, 1973 * ''Amazones, guerrières et gaillardes'', éditions Complexe & Presses universitaires de Grenoble, 1975 * ''Le nucléaire en question,'' 1980 * ''Géométrie projective'',

Presses universitaires de France Presses universitaires de France (PUF, English: ''University Press of France''), founded in 1921 by Paul Angoulvent (1899–1976), is the largest French university publishing house. Recent company history The financial and legal structure ...

, 1986 * ''Colloque en l'honneur de Pierre Samuel'', Mém.

Société mathématique de France Lactalis is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier SA. Lactalis is the largest dairy products group in the world, and is the sec ...

(1989)

References

External links