Agnes Scott College

Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat

Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat

December 29, 1923 -


Received her Docteur es Sciences in 1951. Parts of her thesis on "Théorème d'existence pour certaines systèmes d'équations aux dérivées partielles non linéaires" was published in Acta Mathematica, Vol. 88 (1952), pp141-225. She had already published 9 other papers before this one.

Taught at the Université de Reims, Faculté des Sciences de Paris, and the Université Pierre et Marie Curie. In 1979 she became the first woman elected to the French Academy of Sciences in its 300-year history. She was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985. Works in the area of mathematical physics. Her two-volume set on Analysis, Manifolds, and Physics [Summary] is considered a classic in the field.

Choquet-Bruhat and James York, Cornell University, were awarded the 2003 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics "for their separate as well as joint work in proving the existence and uniqueness of solutions to Einstein's gravitational field equations so as to improve numerical solution procedures with relevance to realistic physical solutions." The prize is presented in recognition of outstanding publications in the field of mathematical physics. (Source: Notices of the American Mathematical Society, June/July 2003)

In 2006 Choquet-Bruhat delivered the Emmy Noether Lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid on the topic of "Mathematical problems in General Relativity" [Video].

In 2018 she published an autobiographical memoir at the request of her children: A Lady Mathematician in This Strange Universe: Memoirs, World Scientific, 2018 (MAA Review by William Satzer).

Profile from the AWM Emmy Noether Lectures.

References

  1. Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat, Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics (CWP)
  2. MathSciNet [subscription required]
  3. Author Profile at zbMath
  4. Mathematics Genealogy Project

Photo Credit: Photograph used with permission of the Association for Women in Mathematics and is taken from Profiles of Women in Mathematics-The Emmy Noether Lectures, published by the AWM.