Jean-Pierre Kahane (11 December 1926 – 21 June 2017) 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 ...

with contributions to

harmonic analysis Harmonic analysis is a branch of mathematics concerned with investigating the connections between a function and its representation in frequency. The frequency representation is found by using the Fourier transform for functions on unbounded do ...

Career

Kahane attended the

École normale supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

and obtained the ''

agrégation In France, the () is the most competitive and prestigious examination for civil service in the French public education A state school, public school, or government school is a primary school, primary or secondary school that educates all stu ...

'' of mathematics in 1949. He then worked for the

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

from 1949 to 1954, first as an intern and then as a research assistant. He defended his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in 1954; his advisor was

Szolem Mandelbrojt Szolem Mandelbrojt (10 January 1899 – 23 September 1983) was a Polish-French mathematician who specialized in mathematical analysis. He was a professor at the Collège de France from 1938 to 1972, where he held the Chair of Analytical Mechanics ...

. He was assistant

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

, then professor of mathematics in

Montpellier Montpellier (; ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of France, department of ...

from 1954 to 1961. Since then, he has been professor until his retirement in 1994, then

professor emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...

at the

Université de Paris-Sud Paris-Sud University (), also known as the University of Paris — XI (or as the Orsay Faculty of Sciences, University of Paris before 1971), was a French research university distributed among several campuses in the southern suburbs of Paris, ...

Orsay Orsay () is a Communes of France, commune in the Essonne Departments of France, department in Île-de-France in northern France. It is located in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France, from the Kilometre Zero, centre of Paris. A fortifie ...

. He was a Plenary Speaker at the

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 ...

in 1962 in Stockholm and an Invited Speaker at the 1986 ICM meeting in Berkeley, California. He was elected corresponding member of the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of 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 method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

in 1982 and full member in 1998. He was president of the

Société mathématique de France Groupe Lactalis S.A. (doing business as 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 S.A. Lactalis is the largest dairy pr ...

, the French Mathematical Society from 1971 to 1973. In 2000 Kahane received an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad hon ...

from the Faculty of Science and Technology at

Uppsala University Uppsala University (UU) () is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. Initially fou ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

In 2002 he was elevated to the rank of commander in the order of the

Légion d'Honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

. In 2012 he became a fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

Activism

Kahane was also known for his lifelong activism as part of the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (, , PCF) is a Communism, communist list of political parties in France, party in France. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its Member of the European Parliament, MEPs sit with The Left in the ...

Selected publications

*''Lectures on mean periodic functions'' (Bombay, Tata Institute, 1959). *''Séries de Fourier absolument convergentes'', Ergebnisse der Mathematik und ihrer Grenzgebiete, vol. 50, Springer Verlag 1970 *with

Raphaël Salem Raphaël Salem (Greek: Ραφαέλ Σαλέμ; November 7, 1898 in Salonika, Ottoman Empire (now Thessaloniki, Greece) – June 20, 1963 in Paris, France) was a Greek mathematician after whom are named the Salem numbers and Salem–Spencer sets, ...

: ''Ensembles parfaits et séries trigonométriques'', Hermann, 1963, 1994 *''Some random series of functions'', Lexington, Massachusetts, D. C. Heath 1968, 2nd edition Cambridge University Press 1985 *''Séries de Fourier aléatoires'', Presse de l’ Université de Montreal 1967 *editor with A. G. Howson: ''The Popularization of Mathematics'', Cambridge University Press 1990 *''Des series de Taylor au movement brownien, avec un apercu sur le retour'', in Jean-Paul Pier, ''Development of mathematics 1900–1950'', Birkhäuser 1994

References

External links

* *
Bio from the French Academy of Sciences
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kahane, Jean Pierre 1926 births 2017 deaths Scientists from Paris 20th-century French mathematicians Academic staff of Paris-Sud University École Normale Supérieure alumni Members of the French Academy of Sciences Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Grand Officers of the Legion of Honour French Communist Party members Fellows of the American Mathematical Society