Serge Lang (1927-2005)

Serge Lang (May 19, 1927 – September 12, 2005) was a French-born American mathematician. Events 1535 - French explorer Jacques Cartier sets sail on his second voyage to North America with three ships 110 men and Year 1927 ( MCMXXVII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1213 - Albigensian Crusade: Simon de Montfort 5th Earl of Leicester, defeats Peter II of Aragon at the Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study and research is the field of Mathematics. He was known for his work in number theory and for his mathematics textbooks, including the influential Algebra. Number theory is the branch of Pure mathematics concerned with the properties of Numbers in general and Integers in particular as well as the wider classes A textbook is a manual of instruction or a standard book in any branch of study He was a member of the Bourbaki group. Nicolas Bourbaki is the collective Pseudonym under which a group of (mainly French) 20th-century Mathematicians wrote a series of books presenting an exposition

He was born in Paris in 1927, and moved with his family to California as a teenager, where he graduated in 1943 from Beverly Hills High School. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city Beverly Hills High School (usually abbreviated as "Beverly" or as "BHHS" is the only major Public high school in Beverly Hills California He subsequently graduated from Caltech in 1946, and received a doctorate from Princeton University in 1951. The California Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Caltech) is a private, Coeducational research university located in Pasadena Princeton University is a private Coeducational research university located in Princeton, New Jersey. He had positions at the University of Chicago and Columbia University (from 1955, leaving in 1971 in a dispute). The University of Chicago is a Private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. Columbia University is a private University in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. At the time of his death he was professor emeritus of mathematics at Yale University. The meaning of the word professor ( Latin: professor, person who professes to be an expert in some art or science teacher of highest rank) varies

Mathematical work

He was a student of Emil Artin at Princeton University. Emil Artin ( March 3, 1898, in Vienna – December 20, 1962, in Hamburg) was an Austrian Mathematician His thesis was on quasi-algebraic closure. In Mathematics, a field F is called quasi-algebraically closed (or C1) if for every non-constant Homogeneous polynomial He then worked on the geometric analogues of class field theory and diophantine geometry. In Mathematics, class field theory is a major branch of Algebraic number theory. In Mathematics, a Diophantine equation is an indeterminate Polynomial Equation that allows the variables to be Integers only Later he moved into diophantine approximation and transcendence theory. In Number theory, the field of Diophantine approximation, named after Diophantus of Alexandria, deals with the approximation of Real numbers by Rational In Mathematics, transcendence theory is a branch of Number theory that investigates Transcendental numbers in both qualitative and quantitative ways

A break in research while he was involved in trying to meet 1960s student activism half way caused him (by his own description) difficulties in picking up the threads afterwards. He wrote on modular forms and modular units, the idea of a 'distribution' on a profinite group, and value distribution theory. In Mathematics, a modular form is a (complex Analytic function on the Upper half-plane satisfying a certain kind of Functional equation and In Mathematics, profinite groups are Topological groups that are in a certain sense assembled from Finite groups they share many properties with their finite In Mathematics, the value distribution theory of holomorphic functions is a division of Mathematical analysis.

He made a number of conjectures in diophantine geometry: Mordell-Lang conjecture, Bombieri-Lang conjecture, Lang's integral point conjecture, Lang-Trotter conjecture, Lang conjecture on Gamma values, Lang conjecture on analytically hyperbolic varieties. This is a glossary of arithmetic and Diophantine geometry in Mathematics, areas growing out of the traditional study of Diophantine equations to encompass large parts In Mathematics, the Sato-Tate conjecture is a Statistical statement about the family of Elliptic curves Ep over the Finite field This is a glossary of arithmetic and Diophantine geometry in Mathematics, areas growing out of the traditional study of Diophantine equations to encompass large parts

Books

He was a prolific writer of mathematical texts, often completing one on his summer vacation. Most are at graduate level and aimed at those intending research in number theory. Number theory is the branch of Pure mathematics concerned with the properties of Numbers in general and Integers in particular as well as the wider classes He wrote calculus texts and also prepared a book on group cohomology for Bourbaki. Calculus ( Latin, calculus, a small stone used for counting is a branch of Mathematics that includes the study of limits, Derivatives In Abstract algebra, Homological algebra, Algebraic topology and Algebraic number theory, as well as in applications to Group theory proper

Lang's Algebra, a graduate-level introduction to abstract algebra, was a highly influential text that ran through numerous updated editions. Abstract algebra is the subject area of Mathematics that studies Algebraic structures such as groups, rings, fields, modules His Steele prize citation stated, "Lang's Algebra changed the way graduate algebra is taught. . . It has affected all subsequent graduate-level algebra books. " It contained ideas of his teacher, Artin; some of the most interesting passages in Algebraic Number Theory also reflect Artin's influence and ideas that might otherwise not have been published in that or any form.

In Lang's obituary article in the Yale Daily News, colleague Peter Jones said that Lang's work is believed to have surpassed the record total output of Leonhard Euler, a prolific 18th century mathematician. The Yale Daily News is a Newspaper published by Yale University students in New Haven Connecticut since January 28, 1878 Peter Wilcox Jones is a mathematician at Yale University, known for his work in Harmonic analysis and Fractal geometry. [1]

Awards as expositor

Lang was noted for his eagerness for contact with students. Many of his students at Yale considered him to be one of the greatest teachers of mathematics in the world. He won a Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition (1999) from the American Mathematical Society. The Leroy P Steele Prizes are awarded every year by the American Mathematical Society, for distinguished research work and writing in the field of Mathematics. The American Mathematical Society (AMS is an association of professional Mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship which In 1960, he won the sixth Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Algebra for his paper Unramified class field theory over function fields in several variables (Annals of Mathematics, Series 2, volume 64 (1956), pp. The Frank Nelson Cole Prize, or Cole Prize for short is one of two Prizes awarded to Mathematicians by the American Mathematical Society, one 285-325).

Activism

In addition to being a mathematician, Lang spent much of his time engaged in politics. He was active in opposition to the Vietnam War. Opposition to US involvement in the Vietnam War is significant because domestic protest in the U He volunteered in the 1966 anti-war campaign of Robert Scheer (and later wrote a book about it entitled The Scheer Campaign). Robert Scheer (born 1936) is an American journalist who writes a nationally syndicated op-ed column for the San Francisco Chronicle He later quit his position at Columbia in 1971 over the university's treatment of anti-war protesters. Year 1971 ( MCMLXXI) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the 1971 Gregorian calendar.

He was also engaged in several "whistle blowing" crusades to challenge anyone he believed was spreading misinformation or misusing science or mathematics to further their own goals. This is an article about a term For the 2008 RTÉ drama see Whistleblower (TV series.

He attacked the 1977 Survey of the American Professoriate, an opinion questionnaire that Seymour Martin Lipset and E. Seymour Martin Lipset ( March 18, 1922 – December 31, 2006) was an American Political sociologist. C. Ladd had sent to thousands of college professors in the United States, accusing it of containing numerous biased and loaded questions. This led to a public and highly acrimonious conflict.

In 1986, he challenged the nomination of political scientist Samuel P. Huntington to the National Academy of Sciences, claiming that his research consisted of "political opinions masquerading as science". Year 1986 ( MCMLXXXVI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar) Samuel Phillips Huntington (born April 18, 1927) is an American political scientist who gained prominence through his " Clash of Civilizations The National Academy of Sciences (NAS is a corporation in the United States whose members serve Pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science The challenge was successful.

Lang kept his political correspondence and related documentation in extensive "files". He would send letters or publish articles, wait for responses, engage the writers in further correspondences, collect all these writings together and point out what he considered contradictions. He often mailed these files to people he considered important; some of them were also published in his books Challenges (ISBN 0-387-94861-9) and The File (ISBN 0-387-90607-X). His extensive file on the Baltimore affair of alleged scientific misconduct was published in the journal Ethics and Behaviour in January 1993 [2]. David Baltimore (born March 7, 1938) is an American biologist

His most controversial political stance was as an AIDS denialist; he maintained that the prevailing scientific consensus that HIV causes AIDS has not been backed up by reliable scientific research, yet for political/commercial reasons further research questioning the current point of view is suppressed. AIDS denialism refers to the views of a loosely connected group of individuals and organizations who deny that the Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV is the cause of acquired Human immunodeficiency virus ( HIV) is a Lentivirus (a member of the Retrovirus family that can lead to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome Scientific method refers to bodies of Techniques for investigating phenomena In public he was very outspoken about this point and a portion of Challenges is devoted to this issue.

Later in his life, Lang expanded his "challenges" to include the humanities. For example, he fought the decision by Yale University to hire Daniel Kevles, a historian of science, because he disagreed with Kevles' book The Baltimore Case. Daniel J Kevles is an American historian of science. He is currently the Stanley Woodward Professor of History at Yale University, a position he assumed in 2001 Science is a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world, produced by a global community of researchers

Books

References

• Steele Prize citation and Lang's acceptance (AMS Notices 1999)
• Jorgenson, Jay; Steven G. In Complex analysis, an elliptic function is a function defined on the Complex plane which is periodic in two directions (a Doubly-periodic In Mathematics, complex multiplication is the theory of Elliptic curves E that have an Endomorphism ring larger than the Integers and William Fulton (born 1939 is an American algebraic geometer. He received his undergraduate degree from Brown University in 1961 and his Doctorate Krantz (May 2006). "Serge Lang, 1927–2005". Notices of the American Mathematical Society 53 (5): 536–553. Notices of the American Mathematical Society is a membership journal of the American Mathematical Society.  
• Jorgenson, Jay; Steven G. Krantz (April 2007). "The Mathematical Contributions of Serge Lang". Notices of the AMS 54 (4): 476–497.  

External links

• Serge Lang at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• Obituary from the New York Times
• Interview with Serge Lang by Anthony Liversidge (1993). The Mathematics Genealogy Project is a web-based Database that gives an Academic genealogy based on Dissertation supervision relations Lang describes at length his method of File making.
• Serge Lang Memorial HIV/AIDS Archive