William Rivier (12 December 1882 – 19 November 1974) was a Swiss mathematician, philosopher, and chess player. Rivier was born in

Bienne Biel/Bienne (official bilingual wording; German: ''Biel'' ; French: ''Bienne'' ; locally ; ; ; ) is a bilingual city in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. With over 55,000 residents, it is the country's tenth-largest city by population. Th ...

to a pastor in the Free Church of Vaud. One of his siblings was the artist Louis Rivier. William Rivier studied mathematics at the

University of Nancy A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

under

Élie Cartan Élie Joseph Cartan (; 9 April 1869 – 6 May 1951) was an influential French mathematician who did fundamental work in the theory of Lie groups, differential systems (coordinate-free geometric formulation of PDEs), and differential geometry. He ...

and subsequently became a mathematics teacher. He drew on his mathematical background for his later philosophical work, which he published in several volumes from 1937 until his death in 1974. While mostly remembered for his philosophical work, Rivier was also one of the strongest Swiss chess players. He played for Switzerland in the

2nd Chess Olympiad The 2nd Chess Olympiad (), organized by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between July 21 and August 6, 192 ...

at The Hague 1928, where he put up a score of +5 –1 =5 (68.2%) and took individual prize for 6th place. He also played in the

4th Chess Olympiad The 4th Chess Olympiad (), organized by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) and comprising an openAlthough commonly referred to as the ''men's division'', this section is open to both male and female players. and (unofficial) women ...

at Prague 1931. He tied for 9-12th at Bern 1932 (

Alexander Alekhine Alexander Aleksandrovich Alekhine. He disliked when Russians sometimes pronounced the of as , , which he regarded as a Yiddish distortion of his name, and insisted that the correct Russian pronunciation was . (March 24, 1946) was a Russian ...

won).

References

Swiss chess players 20th-century Swiss mathematicians 20th-century Swiss philosophers Nancy-Université alumni Chess Olympiad competitors 1882 births 1974 deaths Sportspeople from Biel/Bienne {{Switzerland-philosopher-stub