Maurice Fréchet
| Maurice René Fréchet | |
|---|---|
Maurice René Fréchet
|
|
| Born |
2 September 1878 Maligny, France |
| Died | 4 June 1973 (aged 94) Paris, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions |
University of Bordeaux University of Strasbourg École des Hautes-Études École Normale Supérieure |
| Alma mater | École Normale Supérieure |
| Doctoral advisor | Jacques Hadamard |
| Doctoral students |
Nachman Aronszajn Robert Fortet Đuro Kurepa Ky Fan Antonio Monteiro Jean Ville |
| Known for | Metric spaces, functional analysis |
Maurice Fréchet (French: [moʁis ʁəne fʁeʃɛ]; 2 September 1878 – 4 June 1973) was a French mathematician. He made major contributions to the topology of point sets and introduced the entire concept of metric spaces. He also made several important contributions to the field of statistics and probability, as well as calculus. His dissertation opened the entire field of functionals on metric spaces and introduced the notion of compactness. Independently of Riesz, he discovered the representation theorem in the space of Lebesgue square integrable functions.
He was born to a Protestant family in Maligny, Yonne to Jacques and Zoé Fréchet. At the time of his birth, his father was a director of a Protestant orphanage in Maligny and was later in his youth appointed a head of a Protestant school. However, the newly established Third Republic was not sympathetic to religious education and so the laws were enacted requiring all education to be secular. As a result, his father lost his job. To generate some income his mother set up a boarding house for foreigners in Paris. His father was able later to obtain another teaching position within the secular system – it was not a job of a headship, however, and the family could not expect as high standards as they might have otherwise.
Maurice attended the secondary school Lycée Buffon in Paris where he was taught mathematics by Jacques Hadamard. Hadamard recognised the potential of young Maurice and decided to tutor him on an individual basis. After Hadamard moved to the University of Bordeaux in 1894, Hadamard continuously wrote to Fréchet, setting him mathematical problems and harshly criticising his errors. Much later Fréchet admitted that the problems caused him to live in a continual fear of not being able to solve some of them, even though he was very grateful for the special relationship with Hadamard he was privileged to enjoy.
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