The ghosts of the Ecole Normale. Life, death and destiny of René Gateaux
Résumé
The present paper deals with the life and some aspects of the scientific contribution of the mathematician René Gateaux, killed during World War 1 at the age of 25. Though he died very young, he left interesting results in functional analysis. In particular, he was among the first to try to construct an integral over an infinite dimensional space. His ideas were extensively developed later by Lévy. Among other things, he interpreted Gateaux's integral in a probabilistic framework that later led to the construction of Wiener measure. This article tries to explain this singular personal and professional destiny in pre and postwar France. It also recalls the slaughter inflicted on French students during the conflict.
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