Paul Lévy and Maurice Fréchet. 50 years of correspondence in 107 letters. Translations of the introductory sections and most of the notes by Peter Kleban (Q2637808)
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English | Paul Lévy and Maurice Fréchet. 50 years of correspondence in 107 letters. Translations of the introductory sections and most of the notes by Peter Kleban |
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Paul Lévy and Maurice Fréchet. 50 years of correspondence in 107 letters. Translations of the introductory sections and most of the notes by Peter Kleban (English)
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14 February 2014
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Paul Lévy was born in Paris on September 15, 1886, in a community of mathematicians and thus was a mathematical personality who enriched the mathematical as well as the physical sciences by challenging ideas the names of which have gone down in science's history. He attended the Saint-Louis school located in Paris and then the École Polytechnique. He received numerous qualifications and prizes and thus was successful in almost all his educational path. Maurice René Fréchet, born in Maligny on September 2, 1878, was also a mathematician of high caliber. He attended the Buffon school in Paris and then the Saint-Louis school, to join next the École Normale Supérieure and the Faculty of Science of the University of Paris. Maurice Fréchet was also a scientist who left a great effect in the scientific community. The present book is a collection of the fascinating correspondence between these two mathematicians for a long period of life covering various mathematical topics starting with their academic careers, their scientific international communications, scientific interests, student life, as well as research and mathematical discoveries. This correspondence demonstrates the big patience of these two mathematicians, despite the major events that have marked their lives essentially -- the two world wars. The book consists essentially of a preface developed by Kai Lai Chung in 2003, an introduction and an acknowledgment, a 48-pages chapter entitled ``Introduction to the correspondence'' followed by a personal gallery of photos, one of them makes a good memory of the international symposium on probability calculus in 1948. This picture also includes other mathematical faces such as the famous J. Doob. The main chapter of the book concerned with the correspondence called ``107 Letters from Paul Lévy to Maurice Fréchet''. The book ends with a bibliography and an index of individuals listed in the letters such as Cantelli, Choquet and his famous capacity, Dirichlet, Hadamard, Fermat, Wiener, Zermelo, etc. The present book also serves as a good introduction to the science of the history of mathematics and mainly the development of modern probability theory, and a good guide for researchers in this topic. It shows clearly the development of this science and the difficulties faced by researchers in the socio-economic side as well as the political-governmental one. The readers may find in this book a good reference to know about chronological developments of many famous problems in probability theory and generally in mathematics, and the famous role of the two mathematicians Lévy and Fréchet in such developments.
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Paul Lévy
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Maurice Fréchet
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history of mathematics
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probability theory
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