Talk:Jean-Pierre Serre

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Comment[edit]

The FAC link is incorrect. Dmharvey 17:07, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I removed the phrase "In simple terms" from the front of the highly complex mathematical statement: In simple terms, the problem was that the cohomology of a coherent sheaf over a finite field couldn't capture as much topology as singular cohomology with integer coefficients. (TCO)

Wolf Prize and Abel[edit]

See Talk:Wolf_Prize for a lengthy comment and please direct responses there. --C S (Talk) 11:18, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The anon insists on removing the clearly correct assertions that Serre won the Fields and Wolf, two of the highest honors in math (see Wolf Prize talk page linked above), by saying s/he is reverting "factual errors". I hope s/he understands that continuing in this way without discussion will not succeed. --C S (Talk) 01:30, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can understand that Etale has changed his/her mind about what should be in the intro, but removing mention of the Fields Medal from the intro is quite a serious mistake. The lead section of an article is supposed to stand alone as a summary of the article, and many people would find the mention of the Fields essential information. --C S (Talk) 13:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Serre is now retired from the College de France[edit]

Hence the information given in the "life and carrer" part is outdated. Being no native-speaker of english, I would prefer taht someone else makes the required changes. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 160.39.47.62 (talk) 02:38, 28 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I agree. I fixed that. 82.224.137.145 (talk) 20:28, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Killing spaces??[edit]

Someone added the following sentence: "Together with Cartan, Serre established the technique of Killing spaces for computing homotopy groups of spheres, a problem which was, at that time, considered as the major problem in topology." I don't understand what "Killing spaces" means in this context. Maybe it refers to the technique of building Eilenberg-MacLane spaces? Or, to Postnikov towers? At any rate, this needs to be rewritten. Turgidson 17:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some confusion. It is groups killed, not spaces - the technique generalizes taking the universal cover to kill the fundamental group. And it has nothing to do with Wilhelm Killing. Charles Matthews 19:55, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, of course -- but why get into such details, instead of simply referring to the article on K(π,n) spaces for the construction (which was known before), and focussing instead on the tremendous new stuff (Serre fibrations, Serre spectral sequence, Serre classes, etc) that Serre did in his thesis? I will give it a shot sometimes tomorrow, when I get some time. Turgidson 20:56, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject class rating[edit]

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 04:00, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

At 96 he skis and practices rock climbing?[edit]

I cannot help but wonder whether the present tense is the correct tense to describe his participation in skiing and rock climbing.