Lucien Alexandre Charles René de Possel (7 February 1905 – 1974) 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 ...
, one of the founders of the
Bourbaki Bourbaki(s) may refer to :
Persons and science
* Charles-Denis Bourbaki (1816–1897), French general, son of Constantin Denis Bourbaki
* Colonel Constantin Denis Bourbaki (1787–1827), officer in the Greek War of Independence and serving in the ...
group, and later a pioneer
computer scientist
A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science.
Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...
, working in particular on
optical character recognition
Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronics, electronic or machine, mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo ...
.
Life
Possel was born in
Marseille
Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...
. He had the conventional background for a member of Bourbaki: the
École Normale Supérieure
École or Ecole may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...
,
agrégation
In France, the () is the most competitive and prestigious examination for civil service in the French public education
A state school, public school, or government school is a primary school, primary or secondary school that educates all stu ...
, and then study in
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
. He left Bourbaki at an early stage: there was an obvious personal matter intruding between him and
André Weil
André Weil (; ; 6 May 1906 – 6 August 1998) was a French mathematician, known for his foundational work in number theory and algebraic geometry. He was one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century. His influence is du ...
who had married De Possel's ex-wife Eveline following her divorce from De Possel in 1937.
[
]
Work
De Possel published an early book on
game theory
Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions. It has applications in many fields of social science, and is used extensively in economics, logic, systems science and computer science. Initially, game theory addressed ...
in 1936 (''Sur la théorie mathématique des jeux de hasard et de réflexion''). His later research work in computer science at the
Institut Blaise Pascal was in a position of relative isolation, as the subject strove for independence and to move away from the imposed role of service provider in the field of
numerical analysis
Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic computation, symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of ...
. He became director there in 1960, in succession to
Louis Couffignal (1902–1966), until an administrative reorganisation under the
C. N. R. S. in 1969. He was a leading figure in pushing for the later
Institut de Programmation. He died in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
.
References
External links
Biography(including 4 pictures) on St-Andrews site.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Possel, Rene De
Nicolas Bourbaki
École Normale Supérieure alumni
1905 births
1974 deaths
20th-century French mathematicians