Gustave Choquet (; 1 March 1915 – 14 November 2006) was a French

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

. Choquet was born in

Solesmes, Nord Solesmes (; Picard: ''Solinmes'') is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. Heraldry Education The city is home to: * the École Saint-Joseph. * the ' Institution Saint Michel: Collège and Lycée', a Catholic Secondary Scho ...

. His contributions include work in

functional analysis Functional analysis is a branch of mathematical analysis, the core of which is formed by the study of vector spaces endowed with some kind of limit-related structure (e.g. Inner product space#Definition, inner product, Norm (mathematics)#Defini ...

potential theory In mathematics and mathematical physics, potential theory is the study of harmonic functions. The term "potential theory" was coined in 19th-century physics when it was realized that two fundamental forces of nature known at the time, namely gravi ...

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformations, such ...

and

measure theory In mathematics, the concept of a measure is a generalization and formalization of geometrical measures ( length, area, volume) and other common notions, such as mass and probability of events. These seemingly distinct concepts have many simil ...

. He is known for creating the

Choquet theory In mathematics, Choquet theory, named after Gustave Choquet, is an area of functional analysis and convex analysis concerned with measures which have support on the extreme points of a convex set ''C''. Roughly speaking, every vector of ''C'' sho ...

, the

Choquet integral A Choquet integral is a subadditive or superadditive integral created by the French mathematician Gustave Choquet in 1953. It was initially used in statistical mechanics and potential theory, but found its way into decision theory in the 1980s, wher ...

and the theory of capacities. He did postgraduate work at the

École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

Paris where his advisor was

Arnaud Denjoy Arnaud Denjoy (; 5 January 1884 – 21 January 1974) was a French mathematician. Biography Denjoy was born in Auch, Gers. His contributions include work in harmonic analysis and differential equations. Henstock–Kurzweil integral, His integral ...

. He was Professor at the

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

(subsequently Paris VI) from 1940 to 1984 and was also Professor at the

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

from 1960 to 1969. His honours and awards included being a Member of the

Académie des Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at the ...

, and an Officier of the

Légion d’Honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon B ...

. His students include

Haïm Brezis Haïm Brezis (born 1 June 1944) is a French mathematician, who mainly works in functional analysis and partial differential equations. Biography Born in Riom-ès-Montagnes, Cantal, France. Brezis is the son of a Romanian immigrant father, wh ...

, Gilles Godefroy, Nassif Ghoussoub, Michel L. Lapidus, and

Michel Talagrand Michel Pierre Talagrand (born 15 February 1952) is a French mathematician. Docteur ès sciences since 1977, he has been, since 1985, Directeur de Recherches at CNRS and a member of the Functional Analysis Team of the Institut de Mathématique o ...

. He was married to mathematician and mathematical physicist

Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat (; born 29 December 1923) is a French mathematician and physicist. She has made seminal contributions to the study of General relativity, Einstein's general theory of relativity, by showing that the Einstein field equations, ...

, with whom he had a son

Daniel Daniel is a masculine given name and a surname of Hebrew origin. It means "God is my judge"Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 68. (cf. Gabriel—"God is my strength" ...

and a daughter

Geneviève Genevieve (french: link=no, Sainte Geneviève; la, Sancta Genovefa, Genoveva; 419/422 AD – 502/512 AD) is the patroness saint of Paris in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Her feast is on 3 January. Genevieve was born in Nanterre an ...

. He died in Lyon in 2006.

Bibliography

*, available from Gallica. It is an historical account on the development of the theory of capacities by the founder of the theory and one of the main contributors; an English translation of the title reads as: "The birth of capacity theory: reflections on a personal experience". * Choquet, Gustave (1969), ''Lectures on Analysis'', 3 Vols., W.A. Benjamin, Inc., New York.

External links

A biography (in French)
by the

.
A short biography (in French).A commemorative section
(396kb PDF) of th
N° 111 Gazette des Mathématiciens (2007)
of the

Société Mathématique de France Lactalis is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier SA. Lactalis is the largest dairy products group in the world, and is the sec ...

. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Choquet, Gustave 1915 births 2006 deaths People from Nord (French department) 20th-century French mathematicians University of Paris faculty École Normale Supérieure alumni Members of the French Academy of Sciences Officiers of the Légion d'honneur

Bibliography

See also

External links