No label defined (Q4544173)

This is a mainly biographical approach to the problem of internationalization of French mathematics in the second half of the 19th century. It is focussed on the politically conservative and elitist French mathematician Charles Hermite (1822-1901) who hoped for international reconciliation of intellectuals after the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870/71. Main sources of the article are Hermite's correspondences with the Swedish mathematician G. Mittag-Leffler and the German P. Du Bois-Reymond. Through translations of German work (e.g. Weierstrass and Cantor) by Hermite's students E. Picard, P. Appell, and H. Poincaré much was done for mathematical ``approchement'' between the two countries. This was displayed all the more clearly in the next generation, when individuals such as Maurice Fréchet and Emile Borel took the theory of functions of real variables in important new directions. But the political effect of the ``mathematical reconciliation'' was more dubious as the renewed conflicts around World War I would show. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0990.00012].