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André Weil ( May 6, 1906 - August 6, 1998) was one of the great mathematicians of the 20th century, a founding member of the influential Bourbaki group. He was brother of the philosopher Simone Weil.Born in Paris, he studied in Paris, Rome and Göttingen and received his doctorate in 1928. A conscientious objector and Jew, Weil fled France for FinlandSuomen TasavaltaRepubliken Finland ( In Detail) ( In Detail) National motto: None Official languages Finnish and Swedish Capital Helsinki President Tarja Halonen Prime minister Matti Vanhanen Area Total % water Ranked 64th 337,030 km² 9. 4% Population Tot when World War IIWorld War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the world's nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. The war was fough broke out. A famous anecdote was confirmed in his autobiographyFor the album by Ashlee Simpson, see Autobiography (album In a sense, autobiography is a form of biography, the writing of a life story. The difference, of course, is point of view: an autobiography is from the viewpoint of its subject. Biographers genera: after having been arrested under suspicion of espionageEspionage is the practice of obtaining secrets spying from rivals or enemies for military, political, or economic advantage. It is usually thought of as part of an organized (ie, governmental or corporate) effort. A spy is an agent employed to obtain such in Finland, he was saved from being shot only by the intervention of Rolf NevanlinnaRolf Herman Nevanlinna ( October 22, 1895 May 28, 1980) is perhaps the most famous Finnish mathematician. He is particularly appreciated for his work in theory of functions (i. complex analysis). Apart from mathematics, Nevanlinna took great interest in c.
After the war, Weil went to the United States where he taught
at the University of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a university located in Chicago, Illinois. Just over a century old, it includes departments and committees of: Physics, Economics, Music (theory), Sociology, Linguistics, Political Science, Social Thought, International Relati before settling at the Institute for Advanced StudyThe Institute for Advanced Study is a private institution in Princeton Township, New Jersey, designed to foster pure cutting-edge research by scientists in a variety of fields without the complications of teaching or funding, or the agendas of sponsorship at Princeton UniversityPrinceton University located in Princeton, New Jersey, is one of the eight Ivy League universities. Widely considered one of the world's most prestigious universities, it was founded as the "College of New Jersey" in 1746, and was originally located in El.
He made substantial contributions in many areas, the most important being profound connections between algebraic geometry and number theory. Among his accomplishments were the so-called Weil conjectures (later proved by Bernard Dwork , Alexander Grothendieck and Pierre Deligne), the Riemann hypothesis for function fields, laying proper foundations for algebraic geometry, and discovery that the so-called Weil representation , previously introduced in quantum mechanics by Segal and Shale, gave a proper framework for understanding the classical theory of quadratic forms.
André Weil should not be confused with Andrew Wiles, another famous mathematician who, like Weil, has done important work in elliptic curves; the similarity of their names is a coincidence.
See also: Weil pairing.
