Marcel-Paul "Marco" Schützenberger (24 October 1920 – 29 July 1996) 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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...
and Doctor of Medicine. He worked in the fields of
formal language
In logic, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics, a formal language is a set of strings whose symbols are taken from a set called "alphabet".
The alphabet of a formal language consists of symbols that concatenate into strings (also c ...
,
combinatorics
Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and as an end to obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many ...
, and
information theory
Information theory is the mathematical study of the quantification (science), quantification, Data storage, storage, and telecommunications, communication of information. The field was established and formalized by Claude Shannon in the 1940s, ...
.
[Herbert Wilf, Dominique Foata, ''et al.'',]
In Memoriam: Marcel-Paul Schützenberger, 1920-1996
," ''Electronic Journal of Combinatorics'', served from University of Pennsylvania Dept. of Mathematics Server, article dated 12 October 1996, retrieved from WWW on 4 November 2006. In addition to his formal results in
mathematics
Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...
, he was "deeply involved in
struggle against the
votaries of
arwinism">eo-arwinism",
[Foata, Dominique, "In Memoriam," ''op. cit.''] a stance which has resulted in some mixed reactions from his peers and from critics of his stance on
evolution
Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...
. Several notable theorems and objects in mathematics as well as
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...
bear his name (for example
Schutzenberger group or the
Chomsky–Schützenberger hierarchy).
Paul Schützenberger was his great-grandfather.
In the late 1940s, he was briefly married to the psychologist
Anne Ancelin Schützenberger.
Contributions to medicine and biology
Schützenberger's first doctorate, in medicine, was awarded in 1948 from the ''Faculté de Médecine de Paris''.
[Schützenberger, Marcel-Paul, ]
Contribution à l'étude statistique du sexe à la naissance
', Doctoral thesis, ''Faculté de Médecine de Paris'', 2 July 1948. His doctoral thesis, on the statistical study of biological sex at birth, was distinguished by the
Baron Larrey Prize from the
French Academy of Medicine.
[Besson, Jaques, "]
La quête de M. P. Schützenberger en Médecine et Biologie
'," dated March 2001, retrieved on 5 November 2006.
Biologist Jaques Besson, a co-author with Schützenberger on a biological topic, while noting that Schützenberger is perhaps most remembered for work in pure mathematical fields, credits him
for likely being responsible for the introduction of statistical sequential analysis in French hospital practice.
[Schützenberger, Marcel-Parul, "]
Une application de l'analyse séquentielle
'," ''Semaine des Hôpitaux de Paris'', Vol. 25 No. 60, pp. 2562–2564, 14 August 1949.
Contributions to mathematics, computer science, and linguistics
Schützenberger's second doctorate was awarded in 1953 through the
Paris Institute of Statistics. This work, developed from earlier results is counted amongst the early influential French academic work in information theory.
His later impact in both
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
and combinatorics is reflected by two theorems in formal linguistics (the
Chomsky–Schützenberger enumeration theorem[Chomsky, Noam & Schützenberger, Marcel-Paul ]
The Algebraic Theory of Context-Free Languages
, in ''Computer Programming and Formal Systems'', P. Braffort and D. Hirschberg (eds.), North Holland, pp. 118-161, 1963. and the
Chomsky–Schützenberger representation theorem), and one in combinatorics (the
Schützenberger theorem). With
Alain Lascoux
Alain Lascoux (17 October 1944 – 20 October 2013) was a French mathematician at Université de Paris VII, University of Marne la Vallée and Nankai University. His research was primarily in algebraic combinatorics, particularly Affine Hecke alge ...
, Schützenberger is credited with the foundation of the notion of the
plactic monoid,
[Lascoux, Alain & Schützenberger, Marcel-Paul, "]
Le monoïde plaxique
'," in ''Noncommutative structures in algebra and geometric combinatorics (Naples, 1978)'', volume 109 of ''Quad. Ricerca Sci.'', pp. 129–156, CNR, Rome, Italy, 1981. reflected in the name of the combinatorial structure called by some the Lascoux–Schützenberger tree.
Relatedly, they invented
Schubert polynomials.
In
automata theory, Schützenberger is credited with first defining (what later became known as)
weighted automata, the first studied model of automata which compute a quantitative output.
The mathematician
Dominique Perrin credited Schützenberger with "deeply
nfluencingthe theory of semigroups" and "deep results on rational functions and transducers", amongst other contributions to mathematics.
Offices, honors, and recognitions
;Professorships and other teaching
* Professor in the Faculty of Sciences at the
University of Poitiers
The University of Poitiers (UP; , ) is a public university located in Poitiers, France. It is a member of the Coimbra Group. It is multidisciplinary and contributes to making Poitiers the city with the highest student/inhabitant ratio in France ...
(1957–1963)
* Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
(1961–1962)
* Director of Research at the
CNRS (1963–1964)
* Professor at the
University of Paris
The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...
(1964–1970)
* Professor in the Faculty of Sciences at the
University of Paris VII (1970-until his death in 1996)
;National honors
* In 1988, after having been a ''Correspondant'' since 1979, Schützenberger was made a full ''Membre'' of
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of 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 method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...
.
; Posthumous recognitions
After his death, two journals in theoretical mathematics dedicated issues to Schützenberger's memory. He was commemorated in this manner by ''
Theoretical Computer Science
Theoretical computer science is a subfield of computer science and mathematics that focuses on the Abstraction, abstract and mathematical foundations of computation.
It is difficult to circumscribe the theoretical areas precisely. The Associati ...
'' in 1998
["Special issue: papers dedicated to the memory of Marcel-Paul Schützenberger", ''Theoretical Computer Science'', Nivat, M. & Perrin, Dominique (eds.), Vol. 204, Issues 1-2, September 1998.] and again by the ''
International Journal of Algebra and Computation'' in 1999.
["Special Issue: Dedicated to the Memory of Marcel-Paul Schützenberger," ''International Journal of Algebra and Computation'', Vol. 9, Nos. 3-4, June & August 1999. Issue at URL: https://www.worldscientific.com/toc/ijac/09/03n04]
The mathematician
David Berlinski provided this dedication in his 2000 book ''The Advent of The Algorithm: The Idea that Rules the World'': À la mémoire de mon ami . . M. P. Schützenberger, 1921-1996.
Trivia
* The character "Dr. Schütz" in
Boris Vian's 1948 novel, ''Et on tuera tous les affreux'', is said to have been inspired by Schützenberger.
[ ]
* Together with many of his students, Schützenberger is one of the contributors of the pseudonymous collective
M. Lothaire.
Works
For the complete list of his papers, see
Papers
* ''De la diversité de certains cancers''. Pierre Florent Denoix, Paris (1954)/''About the diversity of some cancers''
* ''Théorie géométrique des polynômes eulériens'', with
Dominique Foata, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, Springer (1970)/''Geometric theory of
Euler
Leonhard Euler ( ; ; ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss polymath who was active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, logician, geographer, and engineer. He founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made influential ...
polynomials''
* ''Triangle de pensées'', with
Alain Connes
Alain Connes (; born 1 April 1947) is a French mathematician, known for his contributions to the study of operator algebras and noncommutative geometry. He was a professor at the , , Ohio State University and Vanderbilt University. He was awar ...
and
André Lichnerowicz, Paris, O. Jacob; Saint-Gély du Fesc : Espace 34 (2000)/''Triangle of thoughts''
* ''Les failles du darwinisme'', La Recherche, n°283 (January 1996)/''The miracles of darwinism''
* ''Œuvres complètes'', edited by
Jean Berstel,
Alain Lascoux
Alain Lascoux (17 October 1944 – 20 October 2013) was a French mathematician at Université de Paris VII, University of Marne la Vallée and Nankai University. His research was primarily in algebraic combinatorics, particularly Affine Hecke alge ...
and
Dominique Perrin, Institut Gaspard-Monge, Université Paris-Est (2009)/''Complete Works''
The Complete Works of Marcel-Paul Schützenberger
Complete Works
See also
*
Jeu de taquin
References and notes
External links
Publications of Marcel-Paul Schützenberger(A list of 266 works authored or co-authored by Schützenberger from 1943 to 2000.)
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schutzenberger, Marcel-Paul
1920 births
1996 deaths
20th-century French mathematicians
French people of German descent
20th-century French physicians
Combinatorialists
French statisticians
French information theorists
French National Centre for Scientific Research scientists
Members of the French Academy of Sciences
University of Poitiers alumni
Academic staff of the University of Poitiers
Scientists from Paris
University of Paris alumni
Information theorists