Jean Alexandre Eugène Dieudonné | |
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Jean Alexandre Eugène Dieudonné
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Born |
Lille, France |
1 July 1906
Died | 29 November 1992 Paris, France |
(aged 86)
Nationality | French |
Fields | Mathematics |
Institutions |
Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques University of Nice University of São Paulo University of Nancy University of Michigan Northwestern University |
Alma mater | École Normale Supérieure |
Doctoral advisor | Paul Montel |
Doctoral students |
Edmond Fedida Alexander Grothendieck Kishore Marathe Paulo Ribenboim |
Known for | Cartan–Dieudonné theorem |
Notable awards | Leroy P. Steele Prize (1971) |
Jean Alexandre Eugène Dieudonné (French: [djødɔne]; 1 July 1906 – 29 November 1992) was a French mathematician, notable for research in abstract algebra, algebraic geometry, and functional analysis, for close involvement with the Nicolas Bourbaki pseudonymous group and the Éléments de géométrie algébrique project of Alexander Grothendieck, and as a historian of mathematics, particularly in the fields of functional analysis and algebraic topology. His work on the classical groups (the book La Géométrie des groupes classiques was published in 1955), and on formal groups, introducing what now are called Dieudonné modules, had a major effect on those fields.
He was born and brought up in Lille, with a formative stay in England where he was introduced to algebra. In 1924 he was admitted to the École Normale Supérieure, where André Weil was a classmate. He began working, conventionally enough, in complex analysis. In 1934 he was one of the group of normaliens convened by Weil, which would become 'Bourbaki'.
He served in the French Army during World War II, and then taught in Clermont-Ferrand until the liberation of France. After holding professorships at the University of São Paulo (1946–47), the University of Nancy (1948–1952) and the University of Michigan (1952–53), he joined the Department of Mathematics at Northwestern University in 1953, before returning to France as a founding member of the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques. He moved to the University of Nice to found the Department of Mathematics in 1964, and retired in 1970. He was elected as a member of the Académie des Sciences in 1968.