Subject: [HM] Fatou's thesis
From: Udai Venedem (venedem@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Mon Jul 17 2000 - 20:59:25 EDT
Dear Historians and other Augustians,
at
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Fatou.html
there is a new and interesting article on Fatou by J. J. O'Connor and
E. F. Robertson. They give details (unknown to me) about the competition
between Fatou and Julia to obtain the 1918 Grand Prix (which was gained
by Julia) of the Academie des Sciences in Paris. It is quite clear now that
the so called Fractal theory was initiated then, by both mathematicians
(if not counted the 1905' von Koch, rather anecdotal). But it gives no
answer to a very naive question I have about Fatou's thesis.
*************
Is Fatou's thesis the memoir named "Se/ries trigonome/triques et se/ries
de Taylor", published in the Acta mathematica 30 (1906) ?
*************
Nothing in Fatou's memoir is said about its "thesis" attitude, when this is
almost explicit (but almost only) in a marvelous Jean-Pierre Kahane's book
("Se/ries de Fourier et ondelettes", Paris, Cassini 1998; a previous version
of it had been issued in English, at Gordon & Breach in 1995).
Note: an Augustian is someone who take his holidays in August, so as to have
time to answer questions like mine. Shame on the Julyists!
Udai Venedem
venedem@wanadoo.fr
welcomes you at
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/alta.mathematica/
a site devoted to collector's books of mathematics
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