Both I and JJ had the same reaction on hearing this news today "Henri Cartan?Dead? WTF you talkin' about, boy? He's been dead like, forever, right?"...
Well, apparently not. So a very long life for Henri, the Third to Last of the Bourbakis.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Henri Cartan, Eminence Grise,et La Mort
Both I and JJ had the same reaction on hearing this news today "Henri Cartan?Dead? WTF you talkin' about, boy? He's been dead like, forever, right?"...
Well, apparently not. So a very long life for Henri, the Third to Last of the Bourbakis.
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7 comments:
A great man, Henri was. Did he surpass his father, Elie Cartan? Hard to tell. But Henri knew how to manipulate CDs, and that does it for me.
Have you guys ever looked at one of Henri Cartan's books? I was up on the Adriatic coast a couple of years ago, and spent a couple of nights poring over his homological algebra book with Sammy Eilenberg. It's still a classic, and useful if you want to check some basic facts about spectral sequences. Here is a pic of the two of them, sitting on a bench, and writing that book. Does Cartan look French with those white shoes, or what?
Here is how Hochschild's review of that book starts: The title ``Homological Algebra'' is intended to designate a part of pure algebra which is the result of making algebraic homology theory independent of its original habitat in topology and building it up to a general theory of modules over associative rings. The particular formal aspect of this theory stemming from algebraic topology is that of a preoccupation with endomorphisms of square 0 in graded modules. The conceptual flavor of homological algebra derives less specifically from topology than from the general `naturalistic' trend of mathematics as a whole to supplement the study of the anatomy of any mathematical entity with an analysis of its behavior under the maps belonging to the larger mathematical system with which it is associated. In particular, homological algebra is concerned not so much with the intrinsic structure of modules but primarily with the pattern of compositions of homomorphisms between modules and their interplay with the various constructions by which new modules may be obtained from given ones.
Where's the Laplacian in all of this?
I've looked at his book on differential forms, but not the homological one. He certainly is a more careful expositor than his Pappy.
As for the Laplacian, Henri had no need of that hypothesis.
...and spent a couple of nights poring over his homological algebra book...
I wanted to get at this one before JJ or Pepe got to it: "homological" sounds pretty gay, AI.
Kind of interesting Cartan genealogy project here. Enjoy.
I am reading this article second time today, you have to be more careful with content leakers. If I will fount it again I will send you a link
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