André Lichnerowicz
Encyclopedia
André Lichnerowicz was a noted French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 differential geometer
Differential geometry and topology
Differential geometry is a mathematical discipline that uses the techniques of differential and integral calculus, as well as linear and multilinear algebra, to study problems in geometry. The theory of plane and space curves and of surfaces in the three-dimensional Euclidean space formed the basis...

 and mathematical physicist
Mathematical physics
Mathematical physics refers to development of mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The Journal of Mathematical Physics defines this area as: "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the development of mathematical methods suitable for such applications and...

 of Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 descent.

Biography

His grandfather fought in Polish resistance against the Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

ns. Forced to flee Poland in 1860, he finally settled in France, where he married a woman from Auvergne
Auvergne (province)
Auvergne was a historic province in south central France. It was originally the feudal domain of the Counts of Auvergne. It is now the geographical and cultural area that corresponds to the former province....

. Lichnerowicz's father held agrégation
Agrégation
In France, the agrégation is a civil service competitive examination for some positions in the public education system. The laureates are known as agrégés...

 in classics, while his mother, a descendant of paper makers, was one of the first women to earn the agrégation in mathematics. André attended the École Normale Supérieure
École Normale Supérieure
The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...

 in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, gaining aggregation in 1936. After two years, he entered the Centre national de la recherche scientifique
Centre national de la recherche scientifique
The National Center of Scientific Research is the largest governmental research organization in France and the largest fundamental science agency in Europe....

 (CNRS) as one of the first researchers recruited by this institution.

Lichnerowicz studied differential geometry under Élie Cartan
Élie Cartan
Élie Joseph Cartan was an influential French mathematician, who did fundamental work in the theory of Lie groups and their geometric applications...

. His doctoral dissertation, completed in 1939 under the supervision of Georges Darmois
Georges Darmois
Georges Darmois was a French mathematician and statistician. He pioneered in the theory of sufficiency, in stellar statistics, and in factor analysis...

, concerned what are now called the Lichnerowicz matching conditions in general relativity
General relativity
General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics...

.

His academic career began under the cloud of German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 occupation, during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. He taught at the University of Strasbourg
University of Strasbourg
The University of Strasbourg in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, is the largest university in France, with about 43,000 students and over 4,000 researchers....

, which was moved to Clermont Ferrand and only returned to Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...

 in 1945, where he taught until 1949. From 1949-1952 he taught at the University of Paris
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...

. In 1952 he was appointed to the Collège de France
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...

, where he taught until his retirement in 1986. He was made a member of the Académie des Sciences in 1963.

His Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 students included Thierry Aubin
Thierry Aubin
Thierry Aubin was a French mathematician at Centre de Mathématiques de Jussieu who worked on Riemannian geometryand non-linear partial differential equations...

, Marcel Berger
Marcel Berger
Marcel Berger is a French mathematician, doyen of French differential geometry, and a former director of the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques , France...

, Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat
Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat
Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat is a French mathematician and physicist. She was the first woman to be elected to the Académie des Sciences Française and is a Grand Officier of the Légion d'honneur....

, Yvette Kosmann, and Thibault Damour
Thibault Damour
Thibault Damour is a French physicist.He is a professor of theoretical physics at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques since 1989....

.

While pursuing an active research career, Lichnerowicz made time for pedagogy
Pedagogy
Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....

. In 1967 the French government created the Lichnerowicz Commission made up of 18 teachers of mathematics. The commission recommended a curriculum based on set theory
Set theory
Set theory is the branch of mathematics that studies sets, which are collections of objects. Although any type of object can be collected into a set, set theory is applied most often to objects that are relevant to mathematics...

 and logic with an early introduction to mathematical structure
Mathematical structure
In mathematics, a structure on a set, or more generally a type, consists of additional mathematical objects that in some manner attach to the set, making it easier to visualize or work with, or endowing the collection with meaning or significance....

s. It recommended introduction to complex number
Complex number
A complex number is a number consisting of a real part and an imaginary part. Complex numbers extend the idea of the one-dimensional number line to the two-dimensional complex plane by using the number line for the real part and adding a vertical axis to plot the imaginary part...

s for seniors in high school, less computation-based instruction, and more development from premises. These reforms have been called a new math
New math
New Mathematics or New Math was a brief, dramatic change in the way mathematics was taught in American grade schools, and to a lesser extent in European countries, during the 1960s. The name is commonly given to a set of teaching practices introduced in the U.S...

 and have been repeated internationally. (see Mashaal (2006)).

Works in English translation

  • Elements of Tensor Calculus, John Wiley and Sons, 1962.
  • Relativistic Hydrodynamics and Magnetohydrodynamics, W. A. Benjamin, 1967.
  • Linear Algebra and Analysis' Holden Day, 1967.
  • Geometry of Groups of Transformations, Leyden: Noordhoff, [1958] 1976.
  • Global Theory of Connection and Holonomy Groups Leyden: Noordhoff, [1955] 1976.
  • Magnetohydrodynamics: Waves and Shock Waves in Curved Space-Time Kluwer, Springer 1994. ISBN 0792328051
  • with Alexandre Favre, Henri Guitton, and Jean Guitton, Chaos and Determinism, Johns Hopkins, 1995.
  • with Alain Connes, and Marco Schutzenberger, Triangle of Thoughts, American Mathematical Society
    American Mathematical Society
    The American Mathematical Society is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, which it does with various publications and conferences as well as annual monetary awards and prizes to mathematicians.The society is one of the...

    , 2000.

Tribute

  • Cahen, M.; Lichnerowicz, André; Flato, M., eds., Differential Geometry and Relativity: A Volume in Honour of André Lichnerowicz on His 60th Birthday, Reidel, 1976. ISBN 9027707456

External links

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