Jacques Tits | Collège de France

Born on August 12 1930 in Uccle, Belgium, Jacques Tits was a mathematician whose work focused on geometry, algebra and group theory.

Jacques Tits died on December 5 2021.

Training and professional career

1948-1956 : Boursier du Fonds national (belge) de la recherche scientifique (Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research)
1956-1962 : Assistant then lecturer at the University of Brussels
1962-1964 : Professor at the University of Brussels
1964-1974 : Professor at the University of Bonn
1973-2000 : Professor at the Collège de France, Chair of Group Theory
1980-1999 : Editor-in-Chief of Publications Mathématiques de l'I.H.E.S.
Member of the Reading Committee of the Comptes rendus de l'Académie

Awards and honors

1955 : Prix scientifique Interfacultataire L. Empain Scientific Prize
1958 : Wettrems Prize from the Académie de Belgique
1965 : Belgian government's decennial mathematics prize
1976 : Grand prix des Sciences mathématiques et physiques de l'Académie des sciences
1977 : Member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina
1979 : Honorary doctorate from Ghent University
1979 : Member of the French Academy of Sciences
1988 : Foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences
1988 : Founding member of the Academia Europaea
1988 : Honorary doctorate from the University of Bonn
1991 : Foreign Associate of the Royal Academy of Belgium
1992 : Doctor honoris causa of the University of Louvain
1992 : Foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
1992 : Foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences
1993 : Honorary member of the London Mathematical Society
1993 : Commandeur des Palmes académiques
1993 : Wolf Prize for Mathematics
1995 : Member of the order " pour le Mérite " für Wissenschaften und Künste (RFA)
1995 : Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur
2001 : Officer of the National Order of Merit
2008 : ABEL Prize

Activities

Lectures : de la Vallée-Poussin Chair 2001-2002, University of Louvain

J. Tits was the first holder of this newly-created chair, which will be awarded each year to a mathematician invited by the University. His teaching included an opening lecture entitled : " Immeubles : une approche géométrique des groupes algébriques simples et des groupes de Kac-Moody " which took place on October 18 2001 and was followed by fourteen hours of lectures (from October 19 to 30 2001) on the following topics : generalities on p-adic numbers, simple algebraic groups on p-adic bodies, schemes in simple generic fiber groups on rings of integers, invariant networks in spaces of representations, algebraic applications.

Presentations

Automorphism groups of unitals, colloquium in honor of Francis Buekenhout, Université libre de Bruxelles, November 21 2003.
Reductive and non-reductive algebraic groups, Armand Borel Day, Henri Poincaré Institute, January 13 2004.
Member of the editorial boards of a dozen mathematical periodicals and book collections.
Member (since 1985) of the international jury for the Balzan Prizes.
Member of the Fields Medal Committee in 1978 and 1994.

Download his bibliography

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