Adrien Douady

Adrien Douady ( born September 25, 1935 in La Tronche, † November 2, 2006 in Saint- Raphaël in Provence ) was a French mathematician who dealt with, among other dynamic systems.

Douady studied from 1954 at the Ecole Normale Superieure and was established in 1965 with Henri Cartan at the University of Paris with a thesis on Le problème of modules pour les sous- espaces analytiques compacts d'un espace Analytique donné. Annales Inst.Fourier, Bd.16, 1966, p.1 -95) PhD. In the beginning he worked on analytical geometry (theory of several complex variables ) and was a member of Bourbaki. At that time, he taught at the Faculté there Sciences of the University of Nice Sophia -Antipolis. He later changed the work area and dealt with dynamic systems, in particular the iteration of complex functions ( holomorphic dynamics) that lead to fractal structures such as the Julia set. Here he worked closely with his student John H. Hubbard. Among other things, they proved that the Mandelbrot set is connected. Douady was a professor at the University of Paris-Sud ( Paris XI University ) in Orsay.

In November 2006, he drowned, an excellent swimmer, in heavy seas in the Mediterranean near Saint -Raphaël.

Douady was launched as a teacher of great seriousness, yet always surprising jokes. About his unconventional lifestyle and actions there are a variety of anecdotes, which earned him not only as a mathematician, but also as a character in a special reputation.

In 1997 he became a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences, 1989, he was awarded the Prix Ampere. In 1986 he was invited speaker at the ICM, Berkeley (surgery sur les applications holomorphic ) and 1966 in Moscow ( Quelque problèmes of modules en géométrie analytique complexe ).

His doctoral include John H. Hubbard and the Chinese mathematician Tan Lei.

He and his wife Régine Douady he wrote a book on Galois theory ( Algèbre et théories galoisiennes. Paris, Cassini, 2nd edition 2005).