131,424 research outputs found
"Audacity or Precision": The Paradoxes of Henri Villat's Fluid Mechanics in Interwar France
In Interwar France, Henri Villat became the true leader of theoretical
researches on fluid mechanics. Most of his original work was done before the
First World War; it was highly theoretical and its applicability was
questioned. After having organized the first post-WWI International Congress of
Mathematicians in 1920, Villat became the editor of the famous Journal de
math\'ematiques pure et appliqu\'es and the director of the influential book
series "M\'emorial des sciences math\'ematiques." From 1929 on, he held the
fluid mechanics chair established by the Air Ministry at the Sorbonne in Paris
and was heading the government's critical effort invested in fluid mechanics.
However, while both his wake theory and his turbulence theory seemingly had
little success outside France or in the aeronautical industry (except in the
eyes of his students), applied mathematics was despised by the loud generation
of Bourbaki mathematicians coming of age in the mid 1930s. How are we to
understand the contrasted assessments one can make of Villat's place in the
history of fluid mechanics
Laver and set theory
In this commemorative article, the work of Richard Laver is surveyed in its full range and extent.Accepted manuscrip
The emergence of French statistics. How mathematics entered the world of statistics in France during the 1920s
This paper concerns the emergence of modern mathematical statistics in France
after the First World War. Emile Borel's achievements are presented, and
especially his creation of two institutions where mathematical statistics was
developed: the {\it Statistical Institute of Paris University}, (ISUP) in 1922
and above all the {\it Henri Poincar\'e Institute} (IHP) in 1928. At the IHP, a
new journal {\it Annales de l'Institut Henri Poincar\'e} was created in 1931.
We discuss the first papers in that journal dealing with mathematical
statistics
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