Bourbaki: A Secret Society of Mathematicians - Softcover

Maurice Mashaal

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0821839675 ISBN 13: 9780821839676

Publisher: American Mathematical Society, 2006

Synopsis

The name Bourbaki is known to every mathematician. Many also know something of the origins of Bourbaki, yet few know the full story. In 1935, a small group of young mathematicians in France decided to write a fundamental treatise on analysis to replace the standard texts of the time. They ended up writing the most influential and sweeping mathematical treatise of the twentieth century, Les élements de mathématique. Maurice Mashaal lifts the veil from this secret society, showing us how heated debates, schoolboy humor, and the devotion and hard work of the members produced the ten books that took them over sixty years to write. The book has many first-hand accounts of the origins of Bourbaki, their meetings, their seminars, and the members themselves. He also discusses the lasting influence that Bourbaki has had on mathematics, through both the Élements and the Seminaires. The book is illustrated with numerous remarkable photographs. Readership Students, mathematicians, and historians interested in the group of mathematicians known as Bourbaki.

About this title

Review:

There are marvelous biographical essays; a fine account of the actual historical figure, Nicholas Bourbaki ... highly appealing stuff ... fantastic pictures ... It's great fun. ---- MAA Reviews

The author, Maurice Mashaal, portrays the protagonists of the secret society and describes their aims, successes, and failures in an entertaining and refreshingly readable style. ---- translated from Neue Zürcher Zeitung

(The) book provides a highly interesting and elucidating account on the once very mysterious Bourbaki group, with numerous new facts, original quotations, propaedeutical explanations, historical reminiscences, biographical sketches, and many rare photographs. This book makes the personage of Nicolas Bourbaki vividly palpable for a wide public, thereby turning a modern fable into an authentic report. ---- Zentralblatt Math

About this edition

• Publisher: American Mathematical Society
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0821839675
• ISBN 13: 9780821839676
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 260