André Weil facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
André Weil
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 6 May 1906 Paris, France
|
| Died | 6 August 1998 (aged 92) Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.
|
| Alma mater | University of Paris École Normale Supérieure Aligarh Muslim University |
| Known for | Contributions in number theory, algebraic geometry |
| Awards |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions | Aligarh Muslim University (1930–32) Lehigh University Universidade de São Paulo (1945–47) University of Chicago (1947–58) Institute for Advanced Study |
| Doctoral advisor | Jacques Hadamard Charles Émile Picard |
| Doctoral students |
|
André Weil (born May 6, 1906 – died August 6, 1998) was a famous French mathematician. He is known for his important work in number theory and algebraic geometry. These are two big areas of mathematics.
Weil was also one of the first and main leaders of a group of mathematicians called the Bourbaki group. His sister, Simone Weil, was a well-known philosopher. His daughter, Sylvie Weil, is a writer.
Contents
André Weil: A Brilliant Mathematician
Early Life and Education
André Weil was born in Paris, France. His parents were Jewish and had moved from Alsace-Lorraine. This was after the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. His younger sister, Simone Weil, became a famous thinker.
André studied in Paris, Rome, and Göttingen. He earned his doctorate degree in 1928. A doctorate is the highest university degree. He also spent two years teaching at Aligarh Muslim University in India.
Besides math, Weil loved old Greek and Latin books. He was also very interested in Hinduism and Sanskrit literature. He even taught himself Sanskrit, an ancient Indian language, when he was just 14 years old.
Life During Wartime
In 1937, André married Éveline de Possel. When World War II started, Weil was in Finland. He had been traveling in Scandinavia. His wife Éveline went back to France without him.
Weil was wrongly arrested in Finland. People thought he might be a spy. But he was not in serious danger. He returned to France through Sweden and the United Kingdom.
In January 1940, he was held in Le Havre, France. He was charged with not reporting for military duty. He was put in prison in Le Havre and then Rouen. While in prison, from February to May, he finished important math work. This work made him famous.
He was tried on May 3, 1940. He was sentenced to five years in prison. But he asked to join a military unit instead. He was allowed to join a regiment in Cherbourg.
After France was defeated in June 1940, he found his family in Marseille. He then went to Clermont-Ferrand. There, he met up with his wife Éveline. She had been living in German-occupied France.
Moving to America and Brazil
In January 1941, Weil and his family sailed to New York. He spent the rest of the war in the United States. He received support from foundations like the Rockefeller Foundation.
For two years, he taught math at Lehigh University. He felt overworked and underpaid there. But he did not have to worry about joining the army.
He left Lehigh and moved to Brazil. From 1945 to 1947, he taught at the University of São Paulo. He worked with another mathematician, Oscar Zariski. André and Éveline had two daughters, Sylvie (born 1942) and Nicolette (born 1946).
Later, he returned to the United States. He taught at the University of Chicago from 1947 to 1958. After that, he moved to the Institute for Advanced Study. He stayed there for the rest of his career.
Weil was invited to speak at major math conferences. These included the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1950, 1954, and 1978. In 1966, he became a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. In 1979, he won the Wolf Prize in Mathematics. He shared it with Jean Leray.
Important Mathematical Ideas
André Weil made big contributions to math. He found deep connections between algebraic geometry and number theory.
One of his main achievements was proving the Riemann hypothesis for zeta-functions. This was for curves over finite fields in the 1940s. He also helped create the proper foundations for algebraic geometry. This was to support his findings.
The "Weil conjectures" were very important from about 1950. Other mathematicians later proved these statements. The last and hardest step was completed by Pierre Deligne in 1973.
Weil also introduced the idea of the adele ring. This helped prove a version of the Riemann–Roch theorem. His ideas also helped in understanding quadratic forms. These are special mathematical expressions.
He also helped create the idea of a uniform space in general topology. This was part of his work with the Bourbaki group. He even chose the symbol ∅ (a circle with a line through it) to mean the empty set in math. He knew this symbol from the Norwegian alphabet.
In 1926, Weil showed that a classic rule about shapes, called the isoperimetric inequality, works on certain curved surfaces. This was an early step in a bigger math problem.
Sharing Knowledge
Weil's ideas were very important for the writings and seminars of the Bourbaki group. He also wrote several books about the history of number theory.
His Beliefs
Indian (Hindu) thought had a big impact on Weil. He was an agnostic, meaning he wasn't sure if God existed. But he respected different religions.
Lasting Impact
An asteroid, 289085 Andreweil, was named after him. Astronomers discovered it in 2004. The official naming was announced in 2014.
Books He Wrote
André Weil wrote many important mathematical books, including:
- Arithmétique et géométrie sur les variétés algébriques (1935)
- Sur les espaces à structure uniforme et sur la topologie générale (1937)
- L'intégration dans les groupes topologiques et ses applications (1940)
- Sur les courbes algébriques et les variétés qui s'en déduisent (1948)
- Variétés abéliennes et courbes algébriques (1948)
- Introduction à l'étude des variétés kählériennes (1958)
- Discontinuous subgroups of classical groups (1958)
- Dirichlet Series and Automorphic Forms (1971)
- Essais historiques sur la théorie des nombres (1975)
- Number Theory for Beginners (1979)
- Adeles and Algebraic Groups (1982)
His collected works were published in three volumes in 1979. He also wrote an autobiography called Souvenirs d'Apprentissage (1991), which means "Memories of Apprenticeship." It was translated into English as The Apprenticeship of a Mathematician (1992).
See also
In Spanish: André Weil para niños
