The Peccot Lecture (''Cours Peccot'' in French) is a semester-long mathematics course given at the

Collège de France The (), formerly known as the or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment () in France. It is located in Paris near La Sorbonne. The has been considered to be France's most ...

. Each course is given by a mathematician under 30 years old who has distinguished themselves by their promising work. The course consists in a series of conferences during which the laureate exposes their recent research works. Being a Peccot lecturer is a distinction that often foresees an exceptional scientific career. Several future recipients of the

Fields Medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of Mathematicians, International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place e ...

, Abel Prize, members of the

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 ...

, and professors at the

are among the laureates. Some of the most illustrious recipients include

Émile Borel Félix Édouard Justin Émile Borel (; 7 January 1871 – 3 February 1956) was a French people, French mathematician and politician. As a mathematician, he was known for his founding work in the areas of measure theory and probability. Biograp ...

and the Fields medalists

Laurent Schwartz Laurent-Moïse Schwartz (; 5 March 1915 – 4 July 2002) was a French mathematician. He pioneered the theory of Distribution (mathematics), distributions, which gives a well-defined meaning to objects such as the Dirac delta function. He was awar ...

Jean-Pierre Serre Jean-Pierre Serre (; born 15 September 1926) is a French mathematician who has made contributions to algebraic topology, algebraic geometry and algebraic number theory. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1954, the Wolf Prize in 2000 and the inau ...

, or

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 ...

. Some Peccot lectures may additionally be granted – exceptionally and irregularly – the Peccot prize or the Peccot–Vimont prize.

History

The Peccot lectures are among several manifestations organized at the Collège de France which are funded and managed by bequests from the family of Claude-Antoine Peccot, a young mathematician who died while aged 20. Several successive donations to the foundation (in 1886, 1894, and 1897) by Julie Anne Antoinette Peccot and Claudine Henriette Marguerite Lafond (widow Vimont) – respectively the mother and the godmother of Claude-Antoine Peccot – first allowed to create annual stipend, followed by annual lectureship appointments, awarded to mathematicians under 30 who have proved promising. Since 1918, the Peccot lectures have been enlarged to two or three mathematicians each year.

Laureates

Laureates of the Peccot lecture and prize who subsequently obtained the Fields medal

: Peccot lecture and prize 1945–1946, Fields medal 1950 *

: Peccot lecture and prize 1954–1955, Fields medal 1954 * Alexandre Grothendieck: Peccot lecture 1957–1958, Fields medal 1966 *

Pierre Deligne Pierre René, Viscount Deligne (; born 3 October 1944) is a Belgian mathematician. He is best known for work on the Weil conjectures, leading to a complete proof in 1973. He is the winner of the 2013 Abel Prize, 2008 Wolf Prize, 1988 Crafoor ...

: Peccot lecture 1971–1972, Fields medal 1978 *

: Peccot lecture and prize 1975–76, Fields medal 1982 *

Pierre-Louis Lions Pierre-Louis Lions (; born 11 August 1956) is a French mathematician. He is known for a number of contributions to the fields of partial differential equations and the calculus of variations. He was a recipient of the 1994 Fields Medal and the 19 ...

: Peccot lecture 1983–1984, Fields medal 1994 * Jean-Christophe Yoccoz: Peccot lecture 1987–1988, Fields medal 1994 *

Laurent Lafforgue Laurent Lafforgue (; born 6 November 1966) is a French mathematician. He has made outstanding contributions to Langlands' program in the fields of number theory and Mathematical analysis, analysis, and in particular proved the Langlands conjecture ...

: Peccot lecture and prize 1995–1996, Fields medal 2002 *

Wendelin Werner Wendelin Werner (born 23 September 1968) is a German-born French mathematician working on random processes such as self-avoiding random walks, Brownian motion, Schramm–Loewner evolution, and related theories in probability theory and mathematic ...

: Peccot lecture 1998–1999, Fields medal 2006 *

Cédric Villani Cédric Patrice Thierry Villani (; born 5 October 1973) is a French politician and mathematician working primarily on partial differential equations, Riemannian geometry and mathematical physics. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2010, and he ...

: Peccot lecture and prize 2002–2003, Fields medal 2010 *

Artur Avila Artur Avila Cordeiro de Melo (; born 29 June 1979) is a Brazilian mathematician working primarily in the fields of dynamical systems and spectral theory. He is one of the winners of the 2014 Fields Medal, being the first Latin American and lusop ...

: Peccot lecture 2004–2005, Fields medal 2014 *

Alessio Figalli Alessio Figalli (; born 2 April 1984) is an Italian mathematician working primarily on the calculus of variations and partial differential equations. He was awarded the Peccot-Vimont Prize and the Peccot Lectures in 2012, the EMS Prize in 201 ...

: Peccot lecture 2011–2012, Fields medal 2018 *

Peter Scholze Peter Scholze (; born 11 December 1987) is a German mathematician known for his work in arithmetic geometry. He has been a professor at the University of Bonn since 2012 and co-director at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics since 2018. He ...

: Peccot lecture and prize 2012–2013, Fields medal 2018 *

Hugo Duminil-Copin Hugo Duminil-Copin (born 26 August 1985) is a French mathematician specializing in probability theory. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2022. Biography The son of a middle school sports teacher and a former female dancer who became a primary ...

: Peccot lecture 2014–2015, Fields medal 2022

All Peccot lectures

References

{{Reflist Collège de France Awards with age limits Early career awards Mathematics awards Mathematics education 1899 establishments in France University and college lecture series Recurring events established in 1899

History

Laureates

Laureates of the Peccot lecture and prize who subsequently obtained the Fields medal

All Peccot lectures

See also

References