The Apprenticeship of a Mathematician. Translated from the French by Jennifer Gage.

WEIL, André (1906-1998):

ISBN 10: 0817626506 / ISBN 13: 9780817626501

Published by Basel, etc.: Birkhäuser, 1992., 1992

About this Item

First Edition in English. Frontispiece, 197 pp; illus. Original decorated matte boards. Near Fine, without dust jacket (as issued). 'Beginning in the 1940s, Weil started the rapid advance of algebraic geometry and number theory by laying the foundations for abstract algebraic geometry and the modern theory of abelian varieties. His work on algebraic curves has influenced a wide variety of areas, including some outside mathematics, such as elementary particle physics and string theory. In fact Weil's work in this area was basic to work by mathematicians such as [Shing-Tung] Yau who was awarded a Fields Medal in 1982 for work in three dimensional algebraic geometry which has major applications to quantum field theory. Yau is not the only mathematician who received a Fields Medal for work which continued that begun by Weil. In 1978 Deligne was awarded a Fields Medal for solving the Weil Conjectures. Again we quote [4] for a description of Weil's fundamental contribution: 'One of Weil's major achievements was his proof of the Riemann hypothesis for the congruence zeta functions of algebraic function fields. In 1949 he raised certain conjectures about the congruence zeta function of algebraic varieties over finite fields. These Weil conjectures, as they came to be called, grew out of his deep insight into the topology of algebraic varieties and provided guiding principles for subsequent developments in the field' ' (MacTutor History of Mathematics Web site, citing 'Weil receives Kyoto prize', Notices Amer. Math. Soc 41 (7) (1994), 793-794).

Seller Inventory # 15070

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Apprenticeship of a Mathematician. Translated from the French by Jennifer Gage.
• Publisher: Basel, etc.: Birkhäuser, 1992.
• Publication Date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0817626506
• ISBN 13: 9780817626501
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket

About this title

Synopsis

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.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French