The Apprenticeship of a Mathematician

The author, a mathematician whose horizons have never been limited to mathematics, recalls a career that led him to numerous continents: to Italy and Germany first of all; then to India where he lived and taught at a critical time in the history of that country, and where he met with Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru; to Russia when Stalinism seemed to be waning only to then rise up again with increased ferocity; to Princeton, the modern "clearing house" of mathematical ideas, called at times a mathematician's paradise; to a prison in Finland where, taken for a Soviet spy, he narrowly escaped execution; to France, where he was convicted for dodging his military obligations (the draft) and where, in the prison of Rouen, he had time to write one of his best mathematical works; to England, where he lived through the Battle of London before returning to France and then to the United States; and finally to Brasil, scene of the last of his vicissitudes, before returning permanently to the United States. Through these often picturesque episodes, the destiny of a mathematician is unfolded, of which perhaps the most salient event was his participation in the foundation of the Bourbaki Group, an auteur collectif , of a treatise that has long since become a classic.

Translated from the French by Jennifer Gage, with assistance of the author.

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French