Person: Painlevé, Paul
Paul Painlevé worked on differential equations. He served twice as prime-minister of France.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Marie Mathilde Painlevé worked in lace and corset supplies.
- He entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1883, and was immediately drawn to mathematics through the influence of outstanding professors like Paul Appell, Gaston Darboux, Charles Hermite, Émile Picard, Henri Poincaré, and Jules Tannery.
- Painlevé was a pacifist and he was appalled both at the strength of nationalism shown by both sides and also the strength of militarism.
- Painlevé followed this route, being appointed as a lecturer in rational and applied mechanics at Lille in 1887, and then returning to Paris in 1892 where he taught both at the Faculty of Science and at the École Polytechnique taking up his appointment on 23 July.
- An important feature of these lectures is the Painlevé Conjecture about the nnn-body problem.
- The last pages contain an application of the results to the 3-body problem and an opinion of the author concerning the n-body case, formulated as a statement which was known afterwards as the Conjecture of Painlevé.
- From 1896 Painlevé taught courses at the Collége de France as a Professeur suppléant and at the École Polytechnique as a Répétiteur d'analyse.
- Painlevé's first area of interest in mathematics was rational transformations of algebraic curves and surfaces.
- For his outstanding mathematical work Painlevé received many awards.
- For his candidacy to the Academy, Painlevé wrote a notice which was published in 1967 as "Analyse des travaux scientifiques jusqu'en 1900" Ⓣ(Analysis of scientific work up to 1900).
- Painlevé was a witness at the second Dreyfus court martial in Rennes.
- Painlevé would continue to fight for justice for Dreyfus until he was exonerated in 1906.
- In this drama of which France can remain proud, because each of the two groups that clashed fought selflessly for its belief, because also no other Nation would have allowed the rectification of the error once committed, Painlevé recognised where Justice was, and where from then on was the true interest of the Fatherland, of our Fatherland.
- This passionate love of justice, which the Dreyfus affair revealed in Painlevé, was perhaps the most striking feature of his moral character.
- Jean Painlevé, resourceful and irresponsible as he was, found a way of taking part in everything that bore even the faintest trace of social protest and disorder.
- At the International Congress of Mathematicians held in Paris in 1900, Painlevé was chairman of the Analysis Section.
- In 1904 Painlevé was a plenary speaker at International Congress of Mathematicians in Heidelberg.
- Painlevé took a special interest in aviation, applying his theoretical skills to study the theory of flight.
- In 1910 Painlevé and Émile Borel published the book L'Aviation.
- The attack rapidly failed and Painlevé had to replace his Commander-in-Chief.
- On Sunday 20 May 1917 a monument was inaugurated to honour the memory of Marcelin Berthelot and Painlevé, as Minister of War, made a speech.
- After a disagreement with the French Socialists, Prime Minister Ribot was forced out and on 7 September 1917 and Painlevé became Prime Minister.
- At the next election of May 1924 Painlevé was part of the winning alliance and was elected President of the Chamber of Deputies.
- The alliance had been forged by Painlevé and M Herriot and the latter became Prime Minister.
- Painlevé was put forward for election as President of the Republic but lost out to M Gaston Doumergue.
- Painlevé still retained high office, however, for he returned to his position as Minister of War.
- In the dusk of his life, the 'President', as he was familiarly called by his friends, was thus returning to his favourite studies, for it was as a mathematician that M Painlevé began his extraordinary career.
Born 5 December 1863, Paris, France. Died 29 October 1933, Paris, France.
View full biography at MacTutor
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
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- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
