Person: Dieudonné, Jean
Jean Dieudonné was a French mathematician who worked in a wide variety of mathematical areas including general topology, topological vector spaces, algebraic geometry, invariant theory and the classical groups. He was a founder member of Bourbaki and also wrote on the history of mathematics.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Dieudonné received both his bachelor's degree (1927) and his doctorate (1931) from the École Normale.
- After teaching at Northwestern University from 1953 to 1959 Dieudonné returned to France to take up an appointment as professor of mathematics at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques.
- We note that Dieudonné's love was for research and not for teaching.
- We mentioned above that Dieudonné was a founder member of Bourbaki.
- In writing Algèbre linéaire et géométrie élémentaire Ⓣ(Linear algebra and elementary geometry) Dieudonné aims to provide teachers in the lycées of France with sufficient background in geometry so that they can prepare their pupils properly for entry to university study.
- Let us not pass judgement on whether the text is too sophisticated to fulfil its intended purpose but we do note that in introducing the real numbers in the first chapter Dieudonné assumes they are an ordered field in which the intermediate value theorem is valid for polynomials of degree 3.
- We should also examine Dieudonné's contributions as a historian of mathematics.
- In addition to the historical texts, Dieudonné edited the works of Camille Jordan.
- In the first volume Dieudonné has contributed an article on Jordan's work on finite groups and in the second volume an interesting 116-page introduction to Jordan's work on linear and multilinear algebra and on the theory of numbers.
- Dieudonné also wrote a preface to the mathematical writings and memoirs of Galois which were published in 1962.
- Several descriptions of Dieudonné, particularly of those involved with him in the Bourbaki project, are interesting.
- But this was not really Dieudonné's style, rather the one he had adopted for Bourbaki.
- When Dieudonné was the scribe of Bourbaki, for many many years, every printed word came from his pen.
- Of course there had been many drafts and preliminary versions, but the printed version was always from the pen of Dieudonné.
- Dieudonné was elected to the Academy of Sciences (Paris) in 1968, received the Gaston Julia prize in 1966, and he was made an Officer of the Légion d'Honneur.
Born 1 July 1906, Lille, France. Died 29 November 1992, Paris, France.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Bourbaki, Topology
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
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- non-Github:
- @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
