Person: Montel, Paul Antoine Aristide

Paul Montel was a French mathematician who worked on complex analytic functions.

Montel then taught at several lycées and at this stage he had no intention of undertaking research in mathematics.
Montel's friends saw the great talent which he possessed and they persuaded him to return to Paris and work on a thesis for his doctorate in mathematics.
Montel worked mostly on the theory of analytic functions of a complex variable.
But at the beginning of the twentieth century Ascoli's theorem had very few applications, and it was Montel who made it popular by showing how useful it could be for analytic functions of a complex variable.
The Grand Prix was won by Julia but Montel, who did not enter for the prize, was awarded a smaller monetary prize at the same time.
Montel also investigated the relation between the coefficients of a polynomial and the location of its zeros in the complex plane.
As we mentioned above, Montel was interested in travel and his eminence as a mathematician led to many invitations which he was more than delighted to accept.

Born 29 April 1876, Nice, France. Died 22 January 1975, Paris, France.

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O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive