Cartan, Lebesgue, de Rham and the analysis situs in the 1920s. Scenes of the Parisian life. (Cartan, Lebesgue, de Rham et l’analysis situs dans les années 1920. Scènes de la vie parisienne.) (French) Zbl 1270.01012

Audin, Michèle

Gaz. Math., Soc. Math. Fr. 134, 49-75 (2012).

This paper deals with mathematicians (Lebesgue, Cartan, Poincaré, Alexandroff, Hopf, “Bourbaki” (as seen through the eyes of G. de Rham)) and their mathematics. De Rham wrote a survey of these important days and work in Paris in the 1920s, on topology, domain invariance, open sets, work of Brouwer, Blumenthal, and many others, the “Seminaire Hadamard”, etc. The whole paper is written like the journey of de Rham through Paris meeting the corresponding persons and their mathematics. A highly original endeavour! So, read the article. An important source is G. de Rham’s paper [“Quelques souvenirs des années 1925–1950”, Cah. Semin. Hist. Math. 1980, No. 1, 19–36 (1980; Zbl 0449.01003)]; the paper under review might be considered as a work-out of that paper, with up-to-date material added. It makes everything highly readable.

Reviewer: R. W. van der Waall (Huizen)

MSC:

01A60	History of mathematics in the 20th century
01A72	Schools of mathematics
01A70	Biographies, obituaries, personalia, bibliographies
54-03	History of general topology
55-03	History of algebraic topology
58A12	de Rham theory in global analysis
58-03	History of global analysis

Keywords:

topology; homotopy; homology; history of mathematics in Paris; de Rham’s historical ramblings; analysis situs

Citations:

Zbl 0449.01003