Leila Schneps facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Leila Schneps
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| Pen name | Catherine Shaw |
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| Nationality | American |
| Education | PhD |
| Alma mater | University of Paris |
| Subject | Mathematics |
| Children | Coralie Colmez |
Leila Schneps is an American mathematician and writer. She works at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (a big French research center). Her main work is in a math area called number theory.
Besides her math research, Leila Schneps also writes books. She has written math books for everyone to understand. She also writes exciting murder mystery novels. For these mysteries, she uses the pen name Catherine Shaw. Her mystery books often have cool math themes in them!
Contents
Becoming a Mathematician
Leila Schneps studied a lot to become a mathematician. She earned her first degree in Mathematics and German in 1983. This was from Radcliffe College in the United States.
She then went to France for more studies. She got her first doctorate degree in Mathematics in 1985. This was at Université Paris-Sud XI-Orsay. Her research was about special math functions. Later, in 1990, she earned her Ph.D. in Mathematics. In 1993, she completed another important step called a Habilitation. This showed she was ready to lead her own research.
Her Work in Math
After finishing her studies, Leila Schneps worked in different places. She was a teaching assistant in France and Germany. She also worked in Switzerland for a year.
In 1991, she got a permanent research job. This was at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). She worked at the University of Franche-Comté in France. During the late 1990s, she also visited famous universities. These included Harvard University and Princeton in the U.S. She also visited Berkeley.
The Grothendieck Circle
A famous mathematician named Alexander Grothendieck stopped sharing his work in 1991. More than ten years later, Leila Schneps and another person found him. They started writing letters to him. This made them some of the last people from the math world to talk with him.
Leila Schneps helped start the Grothendieck Circle. This group works to share information by and about Grothendieck. She created and still manages the Grothendieck Circle website. This website has many of his writings. She also helped translate his letters with another mathematician, Jean-Pierre Serre.
Writing Mystery Novels
In 2004, Leila Schneps published her first mystery novel. She used the name Catherine Shaw for this book. It was called The Three Body Problem, a Cambridge Mystery. The story is about mathematicians in the late 1800s. They are working on a real math problem called the three-body problem. The book's title has a clever double meaning. It refers to the math problem and also to three murder victims.
One person who reviewed the book liked that the math was correct. They also thought the mathematicians in the story felt real. The reviewer found out that Catherine Shaw was a pseudonym. This means it was a fake name used by a real mathematician. Later, it was revealed that Catherine Shaw is Leila Schneps.
Leila Schneps, as Catherine Shaw, has written four historical mystery novels. They all feature the same main character, Vanessa Duncan. Each book also has a math theme:
- Flowers Stained with Moonlight was a mystery that was easy to solve. The book's title hints strongly at the answer to the crime.
- The Library Paradox also has a clever title. It's a classic mystery set in a library. But it also refers to a math idea called Russell's paradox. This paradox asks if a library catalog should list itself. The story also talks about social issues of the time.
- The Riddle of the River explores the world of theater. It also looks at the craze for séances in the late 1800s. And it mentions the start of the telegraph.
- Fatal Inheritance explores ideas about heredity (how traits are passed down). It also touches on new ideas from Dr. Freud.
As Catherine Shaw, Schneps has also written a non-fiction guide. This guide helps people solve Sudoku and Kakuro puzzles.
Math and Justice
Leila Schneps also works to help people understand something important. She wants to make sure math and statistics are used correctly in court cases. This is very important for fairness in criminal trials. She is part of a group called the Bayes and the Law International Consortium.
Family Life
Leila Schneps has a daughter named Coralie Colmez. Coralie is also a writer and mathematician. Her father is Pierre Colmez.
