1878-1973

French Mathematician

Apioneer in the field of topology, one of the more intellectually challenging disciplines of mathematics, Maurice Fréchet removed the intricacies of topological studies even further from intuitive understanding by introducing an unprecedented degree of abstraction. To mathematicians of the early twentieth century, who were just beginning to accept topology in its more general, concrete form, this development hardly seemed like a step forward. Applications of Fréchet's ideas, however, revealed the value of his methods for solving concrete problems that had longed bedeviled mathematicians.

Fréchet was born on September 10, 1878, in the provincial town of Maligny. His parents were in the business of looking after other people: in Maligny, his father, Jacques, operated an orphanage; and in Paris, to which the family moved soon after Fréchet's birth, his mother, Zoé, ran a boardinghouse...