Mathematical Communities
II~'~lvi|,[~]i,~.~|[.-~-nl[,~.],,n,,,,.,nit[:;-1 Marjorie Senechal, Editor ] Nicolas Bourbaki, 1935-???? vided for self-renewal: from time to If you are a mathematician working to- time, younger mathematicians were in- The Continuing day, you have almost certainly been in- vited to join and older members re- fluenced by Bourbaki, at least in style signed, in accordance with mandatory and spirit, and perhaps to a greater ex- "retirement" at age fifty. Now Bourbaki Silence of tent than you realize. But if you are a itself is nearly twenty years older than student, you may never have heard of any of its members. The long-running it, him, them. What or who is, or was, Bourbaki seminar is still alive and well Bourbaki- Bourbaki? and living in Paris, but the voice of Check as many as apply. Bourbakl Bourbaki itself--as expressed through An Interview with is, or was, as the case may be: its books--has been silent for fifteen years. Will it speak again? Can it speak 9the discoverer (or inventor, if you again? prefer) of the notion of a mathemat- Pierre Cartier, Pierre Cartier was a member of ical structure; Bourbaki from 1955 to 1983. Born in 9one of the great abstractionist move- June 18, 1997 Sedan, France in 1932, he graduated ments of the twentieth century; from the l~cole Normale Supdrieure in 9 a small but enormously influential Marjorie Senechal Paris, where he studied under Henri community of mathematicians; Caftan. His thesis, defended in 1958, 9 acollective that hasn't published for was on algebraic geometry; since then fifteen years.
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