• Corpus ID: 17871905

Henri Poincaré. A Life in the Service of Science

@inproceedings{Mawhin2004HenriPA,
  title={Henri Poincar{\'e}. A Life in the Service of Science},
  author={Jean Mawhin},
  year={2004}
}

• J. Mawhin
• Published 2004
• Physics

1032 NOTICES OF THE AMS VOLUME 52, NUMBER 9 Introduction In 1954 the scientific community celebrated the 100th anniversary of Henri Poincare’s birth. At that time, Poincare’s fame was not at its highest point among mathematicians, and the spirit of Hilbert dominated most mathematical minds. His fame was also not at its highest point among physicists, as physics was then essentially concerned with quantum theory. Nevertheless, the celebration was important in the many places where Poincare’s presence or name had been significant. The proceedings of this celebration were published as a memorial book and were reproduced in the last volume of Poincare’s Scientific Work. This year, as we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Poincare’s birth, his popularity has reached new summits in the scientific world and even among laymen. Chaos theory and the origins of special relativity have brought Poincare’s name and picture to most popular science journals. But although several new books about Einstein have been added this year to an already long list, we are still waiting for a detailed biography of Poincare. Presented here is an impressionistic introduction to Henri Poincare, the man and the scientist.