Szolem Mandelbrojt (10 January 1899 – 23 September 1983) was a
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
-
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
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 ...
who specialized in
mathematical analysis
Analysis is the branch of mathematics dealing with continuous functions, limit (mathematics), limits, and related theories, such as Derivative, differentiation, Integral, integration, measure (mathematics), measure, infinite sequences, series (m ...
. He was a professor at the
Collège de France
The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment (''grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris ne ...
from 1938 to 1972, where he held the Chair of Analytical Mechanics and Celestial Mechanics.
Biography
Szolem Mandelbrojt was born on 10 January 1899 in
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
, Poland into a Jewish family of
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
n descent. He was initially educated in Warsaw, then in 1919 he moved to
Kharkov
Kharkiv ( uk, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest city and municipality in Ukraine. ,
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
(then
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
) and spent a year as a student of the
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
n mathematician
Sergei Bernstein
Sergei Natanovich Bernstein (russian: Серге́й Ната́нович Бернште́йн, sometimes Romanized as ; 5 March 1880 – 26 October 1968) was a Ukrainian and Russian mathematician of Jewish origin known for contributions to parti ...
. A year later, he emigrated to France and settled in
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 ...
. In subsequent years, he attended the seminars of
Jacques Hadamard
Jacques Salomon Hadamard (; 8 December 1865 – 17 October 1963) was a French mathematician who made major contributions in number theory, complex analysis, differential geometry and partial differential equations.
Biography
The son of a teac ...
,
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 ...
,
Émile Picard
Charles Émile Picard (; 24 July 1856 – 11 December 1941) was a French mathematician. He was elected the fifteenth member to occupy seat 1 of the Académie française in 1924.
Life
He was born in Paris on 24 July 1856 and educated there at th ...
, and others. In 1923, he received a doctorate from
Paris-Sorbonne University
Paris-Sorbonne University (also known as Paris IV; french: Université Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV) was a public research university in Paris, France, active from 1971 to 2017. It was the main inheritor of the Faculty of Humanities of the Universit ...
on the
analytic continuation
In complex analysis, a branch of mathematics, analytic continuation is a technique to extend the domain of definition of a given analytic function. Analytic continuation often succeeds in defining further values of a function, for example in a new ...
of the
Taylor series
In mathematics, the Taylor series or Taylor expansion of a function is an infinite sum of terms that are expressed in terms of the function's derivatives at a single point. For most common functions, the function and the sum of its Taylor serie ...
. Hadamard was his Ph.D. advisor.
In 1924 Mandelbrojt was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
.
In May 1926 he married Gladys Manuelle Grunwald (born 28 June 1904 in Paris).
From 1926 to 1927, he spent a year as an assistant professor at the
Rice Institute
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is an international agricultural research and training organization with its headquarters in Los Baños, Laguna, in the Philippines, and offices in seventeen countries. IRRI is known for its work ...
(now Rice University) in
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
, Texas.
In 1928 he returned to France - having received French citizenship in 1927 – and was appointed an assistant professor 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 ...
. The following year he became a full professor at the
University of Clermont-Ferrand
The University of Clermont-Ferrand was officially founded in 1896, by merging of two existing faculties (Literature and Sciences) and a medical school.
In 1976, due to political issues, the University split between University Clermont-Ferrand I - ...
. In December 1934 Mandelbrojt co-founded the
Nicolas Bourbaki
Nicolas Bourbaki () is the collective pseudonym of a group of mathematicians, predominantly French alumni of the École normale supérieure (Paris), École normale supérieure - PSL (ENS). Founded in 1934–1935, the Bourbaki group originally in ...
group of mathematicians, of which he was a member until
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. He succeeded Hadamard at Collège de France in 1938 and took up the Chair of
Analytical Mechanics
In theoretical physics and mathematical physics, analytical mechanics, or theoretical mechanics is a collection of closely related alternative formulations of classical mechanics. It was developed by many scientists and mathematicians during the ...
and
Celestial Mechanics
Celestial mechanics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the motions of objects in outer space. Historically, celestial mechanics applies principles of physics (classical mechanics) to astronomical objects, such as stars and planets, to ...
.
Mandelbrojt helped several members of his family emigrate from Poland to France in 1936. One of them, his nephew
Benoit Mandelbrot
Benoit B. Mandelbrot (20 November 1924 – 14 October 2010) was a Polish-born French-American mathematician and polymath with broad interests in the practical sciences, especially regarding what he labeled as "the art of roughness" of phy ...
, was to discover the
Mandelbrot set
The Mandelbrot set () is the set of complex numbers c for which the function f_c(z)=z^2+c does not diverge to infinity when iterated from z=0, i.e., for which the sequence f_c(0), f_c(f_c(0)), etc., remains bounded in absolute value.
This ...
and coin the word
fractal
In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as illu ...
in the 1970s.
In 1939 he fought for France when the country was invaded by the Nazis, then in 1940, along with many scientists helped by
Louis Rapkine
Louis Rapkine (July 14, 1904 – December 13, 1948) was a French biologist, specializing in embryology and enzymology. He is best known for his role in saving numerous French scientists from persecution during World War II, and in rebuilding the F ...
and the
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...
, Mandelbrojt relocated to the United States, taking up a position at the Rice Institute. In 1944 he joined the scientific committee of the
Free French Forces
__NOTOC__
The French Liberation Army (french: Armée française de la Libération or AFL) was the reunified French Army that arose from the merging of the Armée d'Afrique with the prior Free French Forces (french: Forces françaises libres, l ...
in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, England.
In 1945 Mandelbrojt moved back to France and resumed his professional activities at Collège de France, where he remained until his retirement in 1972. In his retirement year he was elected a member 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 ...
.
Szolem Mandelbrojt died at the age of 84 in Paris, France, on 23 September 1983.
Research
Even though Mandelbrojt was an early 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 ...
, and he did take part in a number of Bourbaki gatherings until the breakout of the war, his main research interests were actually quite remote from
abstract algebra
In mathematics, more specifically algebra, abstract algebra or modern algebra is the study of algebraic structures. Algebraic structures include groups, rings, fields, modules, vector spaces, lattices, and algebras over a field. The term ''a ...
. As evidenced by his publications (see next), he focused on
complex analysis
Complex analysis, traditionally known as the theory of functions of a complex variable, is the branch of mathematical analysis that investigates Function (mathematics), functions of complex numbers. It is helpful in many branches of mathemati ...
and
harmonic analysis
Harmonic analysis is a branch of mathematics concerned with the representation of Function (mathematics), functions or signals as the Superposition principle, superposition of basic waves, and the study of and generalization of the notions of Fo ...
, with an emphasis on
Dirichlet series
In mathematics, a Dirichlet series is any series of the form
\sum_^\infty \frac,
where ''s'' is complex, and a_n is a complex sequence. It is a special case of general Dirichlet series.
Dirichlet series play a variety of important roles in analyti ...
,
lacunary series In analysis, a lacunary function, also known as a lacunary series, is an analytic function that cannot be analytically continued anywhere outside the radius of convergence within which it is defined by a power series. The word ''lacunary'' is derive ...
, and
entire function
In complex analysis, an entire function, also called an integral function, is a complex-valued function that is holomorphic on the whole complex plane. Typical examples of entire functions are polynomials and the exponential function, and any fin ...
s.
Rather than a Bourbakist, he is perhaps more accurately described as a follower of
G. H. Hardy
Godfrey Harold Hardy (7 February 1877 – 1 December 1947) was an English mathematician, known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis. In biology, he is known for the Hardy–Weinberg principle, a basic principle of pop ...
. Together with
Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American mathematician and philosopher. He was a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher i ...
and
Torsten Carleman
Torsten Carleman (8 July 1892, Visseltofta, Osby Municipality – 11 January 1949, Stockholm), born Tage Gillis Torsten Carleman, was a Swedish mathematician, known for his results in classical analysis and its applications. As the director of th ...
, he can be viewed as a moderate modernizer of classical
Fourier analysis
In mathematics, Fourier analysis () is the study of the way general functions may be represented or approximated by sums of simpler trigonometric functions. Fourier analysis grew from the study of Fourier series, and is named after Josep ...
.
Shmuel Agmon,
Jean-Pierre Kahane
Jean-Pierre Kahane (11 December 1926 – 21 June 2017) was a French mathematician with contributions to harmonic analysis.
Career
Kahane attended the École normale supérieure and obtained the ''agrégation'' of mathematics in 1949. He then wor ...
,
Yitzhak Katznelson
Yitzhak Katznelson ( he, יצחק כצנלסון; born 1934) is an Israeli mathematician.
Katznelson was born in Jerusalem. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Paris in 1956. He is a professor of mathematics at Stanford Uni ...
, and
Paul Malliavin
Paul Malliavin (; September 10, 1925 – June 3, 2010) was a French mathematician who made important contributions to harmonic analysis and stochastic analysis.
He is known for the Malliavin calculus, an infinite dimensional calculus for func ...
are among his students.
Selected works
Books
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Lecture notes
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Articles
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Thesis
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Notes
References
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External links
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Szolem Mandelbrojtat
Collège de France
The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment (''grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris ne ...
.
Szolem Mandelbrojtat Hathi Trust Digital Library.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mandelbrojt, Szolem
1899 births
1983 deaths
National University of Kharkiv alumni
Nicolas Bourbaki
20th-century French mathematicians
Polish mathematicians
Jewish scientists
Lille University of Science and Technology faculty
Members of the French Academy of Sciences
Rice University faculty
20th-century Polish Jews
Polish emigrants to France