Biography:Jean Cerf

From HandWiki
Short description: French mathematician (born 1928)
Jean Cerf
Born1928 (age 95–96)
NationalityFrench
Alma materÉcole Normale Supérieure
Known forCerf theory
Pseudoisotopy theorem
Awardsprix Servant (1970)
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsUniversity of Lille
University of Paris XI
Doctoral advisorHenri Cartan
Doctoral studentsAlain Chenciner

Jean Cerf (born 1928) is a French mathematician, specializing in topology.

Education and career

Jean Cerf was born in Strasbourg, France, in 1928. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure, graduating in sciences in 1947. After passing his agrégation in mathematics in 1950, he obtained a doctorate with thesis supervised by Henri Cartan. Cerf became a maître de conférences at the University of Lille and was later appointed a professor at the University of Paris XI. He was also a director of research at CNRS.[1]

Cerf's research deals with differential topology, cobordism, and symplectic topology. In 1966 he was an Invited Speaker at the ICM in Moscow.[2] In 1968 Cerf proved that every orientation-preserving diffeomorphism of [math]\displaystyle{ S^3 }[/math] is isotopic to the identity.[3] In 1970 Cerf proved the pseudo-isotopy theory for simply connected manifolds. In 1970 he was awarded the prix Servant, together with Bernard Malgrange and André Néron (for independent work). 1971 he was the president of the Société Mathématique de France.

Selected publications

References

  1. Cerf, Biographie
  2. Cerf, Jean. "Isotopie et pseudo-isotopie." In Proceedings of International Congress of Mathematicians (Moscow), pp. 429-437. 1966.
  3. J. Cerf, Sur les difféomorphismes de la sphère de dimension trois (Γ4=0), Lecture Notes in Mathematics, No. 53. Springer-Verlag, Berlin-New York 1968. (See Cerf theory.)