Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Making a Global Mathematician
ASET Colloquium
Speaker:
Michael Barany (Dartmouth College
Department of History
Hanover NH 03755
United States of America)
Date:
Thursday, 8 Feb 2018, 16:00 to 17:00
Venue:
AG-69
(Scan to add to calendar)
Abstract:
Between 1947 and 1950, French mathematician Laurent Schwartz went from being virtually unknown outside of France to an international mathematical celebrity. By the mid-1950s, he was a famed world traveler, lecturing in such varied places as Buenos Aires, Tunisia, and the TIFR. Schwartz's emergence as a global mathematician followed a pattern that would have been virtually unthinkable to a prior generation, but became increasingly possible for later generations of mathematicians. I will discuss Schwartz's trajectory in the context of mathematicians' changing discipline in the mid-twentieth century, as well as aspects of Schwartz's theories, personality, and politics that shaped is course. This story shall illustrate several broader claims I am developing about the history of mathematics in the mid-twentieth century, and will explain, in particular, why I have been so keenly looking forward to my research in the TIFR archives.
| Speaker: | Michael Barany (Dartmouth College Department of History Hanover NH 03755 United States of America) |
| Date: | Thursday, 8 Feb 2018, 16:00 to 17:00 |
| Venue: | AG-69 |
(Scan to add to calendar)
Abstract:
Between 1947 and 1950, French mathematician Laurent Schwartz went from being virtually unknown outside of France to an international mathematical celebrity. By the mid-1950s, he was a famed world traveler, lecturing in such varied places as Buenos Aires, Tunisia, and the TIFR. Schwartz's emergence as a global mathematician followed a pattern that would have been virtually unthinkable to a prior generation, but became increasingly possible for later generations of mathematicians. I will discuss Schwartz's trajectory in the context of mathematicians' changing discipline in the mid-twentieth century, as well as aspects of Schwartz's theories, personality, and politics that shaped is course. This story shall illustrate several broader claims I am developing about the history of mathematics in the mid-twentieth century, and will explain, in particular, why I have been so keenly looking forward to my research in the TIFR archives.