Marie-France Vignéras facts for kids
Marie-France Vignéras (born in 1946) is a well-known French mathematician. She is a Professor Emeritus at the Institut de Mathématiques de Jussieu in Paris. She is famous for her discovery in 1980. She showed that two different shapes can make the exact same sound, like two drums that look different but sound identical. This idea is often described as "you cannot hear the shape of a hyperbolic drum." She also made important discoveries in a complex area of math called the Langlands program.
Early Life and Schooling
Marie-France Vignéras was born in 1946. Her mother was Janine Mocudé, and her father, Robert Vignéras, was a sea captain. She spent her childhood in Senegal, a country in West Africa. She attended high school in Dakar, the capital of Senegal.
After finishing high school, she moved to France to study at the University of Bordeaux. She earned a special teaching qualification in mathematics in 1969. Later, in 1974, she completed her advanced degree, similar to a PhD, under the guidance of Jacques Martinet.
Her Work as a Mathematician
From 1977 to 1983, Marie-France Vignéras was the Director of Mathematics at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Sèvres. This is a very famous and important school in France. After this, she returned to work at the University of Paris 7.
Since 2010, she has been an Emeritus Professor. This means she is retired but still connected to the university and continues her research. Marie-France Vignéras has traveled a lot for her work. She has visited many universities and research centers around the world. These include places like the Max Planck Institute in Germany, the University of California at Berkeley in the USA, and Harvard University. She has also given talks at major math conferences, like the European Congress of Mathematics in 2000 and the International Congress of Mathematics in 2002.
She has also guided many students who went on to become successful mathematicians themselves.
Awards and Honors
Marie-France Vignéras has received several important awards for her contributions to mathematics:
- In 1978, she received the Médaille Albert Chatelet.
- In 1984, she was awarded the Médaille d'argent (Silver Medal) from the C.N.R.S., a top research organization in France.
- In 1985, she received the Prix von Humboldt.
- In 1997, she was honored with the Prix Petit d'Ormoy, Carrière, Thébault from the French Academy of Sciences.
- In 2017, she became a member of the Academia Europaea, a group of leading scientists and scholars.
- In 2018, she was chosen as a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
