Alain Lascoux (17 October 1944 – 20 October 2013) 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, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

at Université de Paris VII, University of Marne la Vallée and

Nankai University Nankai University is a public university in Tianjin, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction. Nankai University was establ ...

. His research was primarily in

algebraic combinatorics Algebraic combinatorics is an area of mathematics that employs methods of abstract algebra, notably group theory and representation theory, in various combinatorial contexts and, conversely, applies combinatorial techniques to problems in algeb ...

, particularly

Hecke algebra In mathematics, the Hecke algebra is the algebra generated by Hecke operators, which are named after Erich Hecke. Properties The algebra is a commutative ring. In the classical elliptic modular form theory, the Hecke operators ''T'n'' with ' ...

s and

Young tableau In mathematics, a Young tableau (; plural: tableaux) is a combinatorial object useful in representation theory and Schubert calculus. It provides a convenient way to describe the group representations of the symmetric and general linear groups an ...

x. Lascoux earned his doctorate in 1977 from the

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

. He worked for twenty years with

Marcel-Paul Schützenberger Marcel-Paul "Marco" Schützenberger (24 October 1920 – 29 July 1996) was a French mathematician and Doctor of Medicine. He worked in the fields of formal language, combinatorics, and information theory.Herbert Wilf, Dominique Foata, ''et al.'', ...

on properties of the symmetric group. They wrote many articles together and had a major impact on the development of

. They succeeded in giving a combinatorial understanding of various algebraic and geometric questions in representation theory. Thus they introduced many new objects related to both fields like Schubert polynomials and

Grothendieck polynomials Alexander Grothendieck, later Alexandre Grothendieck in French (; ; ; 28 March 1928 – 13 November 2014), was a German-born French mathematician who became the leading figure in the creation of modern algebraic geometry. His research ext ...

, as well as novel terminology like the

plactic monoid In mathematics, the plactic monoid is the monoid of all words in the alphabet of positive integers modulo Knuth equivalence. Its elements can be identified with semistandard Young tableaux. It was discovered by (who called it the tableau alg ...

and vexillary permutations. They were also the first to define the crystal graph structure on Young tableaux (though not under this name). Lascoux was an invited speaker at the 1998

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the IMU Abacus Medal (known before ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

References

External links

Website at Université de Marne-la-Vallée
1944 births University of Paris alumni 2013 deaths Combinatorialists 20th-century French mathematicians 21st-century French mathematicians {{France-mathematician-stub

See also

References

External links