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René Thom
Mathematician

René Thom

Famoose for

Founding cobordism theory and developing catastrophe theory.

Cobordism · Catastrophe theory

Born
2 September 1923
Birthplace
Montbéliard
Died
25 October 2002

More people

Marie CurieDiscovering polonium and radium.Albert EinsteinDeveloping the theory of relativity.Charles DarwinExplaining evolution through natural selection.

René Thom

René Thom was a French mathematician whose work linked topology with the study of sudden changes in continuous systems.

Early life

Education

Entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1943 and completed a doctorate under Henri Cartan in 1951.

Career

  1. 1953–1963

    University posts

    Taught at Grenoble and Strasbourg.

  2. 1958

    Fields Medal

    Received the medal for his work on cobordism.

  3. 1964–1990

    IHES

    Worked at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques.

Contributions

Cobordism

Studied when manifolds form the boundary of a higher-dimensional manifold.

Catastrophe theory

Developed mathematical approaches to abrupt changes of form.

Beyond research

Artistic influence

His ideas inspired paintings by Salvador Dalí.

Sources & photo creditBiography and career ↗Biographical references ↗

Original photograph. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.

Photo: Konrad Jacobs, Erlangen. CC BY-SA 2.0 de · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.