René Thom
French mathematician (1923–2002) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
René Frédéric Thom (French: [ʁəne tɔm]; 2 September 1923 – 25 October 2002) was a French mathematician, who received the Fields Medal in 1958.
Quick Facts Born, Died ...
René Thom | |
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Born | (1923-09-02)2 September 1923 Montbéliard, France |
Died | 25 October 2002(2002-10-25) (aged 79) Bures-sur-Yvette, France |
Alma mater | École Normale Supérieure, University of Paris |
Known for | Catastrophe theory Cobordism Gradient conjecture Quasi-fibration Splitting lemma Thom conjecture Thom isomorphism Thom space Thom transversality theorem Thom's first isotopy lemma Thom–Porteous formula Thom–Sebastiani Theorem Dold–Thom theorem |
Children | Françoise Thom |
Awards | Fields Medal (1958) Brouwer Medal (1970) John von Neumann Lecture Prize (1976) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Mathematics |
Institutions | University of Strasbourg Université Joseph Fourier Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques |
Thesis | Espaces fibrés en sphères et carrés de Steenrod (1951) |
Doctoral advisor | Henri Cartan |
Doctoral students | David Trotman |
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He made his reputation as a topologist, moving on to aspects of what would be called singularity theory; he became world-famous among the wider academic community and the educated general public for one aspect of this latter interest, his work as founder of catastrophe theory (later developed by Christopher Zeeman).[1][2][3][4][5]