Jacques Hadamard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Jacques Salomon Hadamard |
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| Born | December 8, 1865 Versailles, France |
|---|---|
| Died | October 17, 1963 Paris, France |
| Nationality |  French |
| Field | Mathematician |
| Institution | University of Bordeaux Sorbonne Collège de France |
| Alma Mater | École Normale Supérieure |
| Academic Advisor | C. Émile Picard Jules Tannery |
| Notable Students | Maurice René Fréchet Paul Lévy Szolem Mandelbrojt André Weil Xinmou Wu |
| Known for | Hadamard product Proof of prime number theorem |
| Notable Prizes | Grand Prix des Sciences Mathématiques (1892) Prix Poncelet (1898) |
Jacques Salomon Hadamard (December 8, 1865 – October 17, 1963) was a French mathematician best known for his proof of the prime number theorem in 1896.
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[edit] Biography
Hadamard studied at the École Normale Supérieure under the direction of Charles Émile Picard. After the Dreyfus affair, which involved him personally (Dreyfus was his brother-in-law), he became politically active and became a staunch supporter of Jewish causes.
He introduced the idea of well-posed problem in the theory of partial differential equations. He also gave his name to the Hadamard inequality on volumes, and the Hadamard matrix, on which the Hadamard transform is based. The Hadamard gate in quantum computing uses this matrix.
His students included Maurice Fréchet, Paul Lévy, Szolem Mandelbrojt and André Weil.
[edit] On Creativity
In his book Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field, Hadamard uses introspection to describe mathematical thought processes. In sharp contrast to authors who identify language and cognition, he describes his own mathematical thinking as largely wordless, often accompanied by mental images that represent the entire solution to a problem. He surveyed 100 of the leading physicists of the day (approximately 1900), asking them how they did their work. Many of the responses mirrored his; some reported seeing mathematical concepts as colors.
Hadamard described the experiences of the mathematicians/theoretical physicists Carl Friedrich Gauss, Hermann von Helmholtz, Henri Poincaré and others as viewing entire solutions with “sudden spontaneousness.”[1] The same has been reported in literature by many others, such as Denis Brian,[2] G. H. Hardy,[3], B. L. van der Waerden,[4] and Harold Ruegg.[5]
Hadamard described the process as having four steps of the five-step Graham Wallas creative process model, with the first three also having been put forth by Helmholtz:[6]
- Preparation
- Incubation
- Illumination
- Verification
Marie-Louise von Franz, a colleague of the eminent psychiatrist Carl Jung, noted that in these unconscious scientific discoveries the “always recurring and important factor … is the simultaneity with which the complete solution is intuitively perceived and which can be checked later by discursive reasoning.” She attributes the solution presented “as an archetypal pattern or image.”[7] As cited by von Franz,[8] according to Jung: “Archetypes … manifest themselves only through their ability to organize images and ideas, and this is always an unconscious process which cannot be detected until afterwards.”[9]
[edit] Writings
- Jacques Hadamard The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field (Dover, 1954) ISBN 0-486-20107-4 [Copyright Princeton University Press, 1945: Jacques Hadamard The Mathematician's Mind: The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field (Princeton, 1996) ISBN 0-691-02931-8]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- O'Connor, John J., and Edmund F. Robertson. "Jacques Hadamard". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
- Jacques Hadamard at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
[edit] Further reading
- Life and Work of Jacques Hadamard, Vladimir Maz'ya & T. O. Shaposhnikova, American Mathematical Society, February 1998, hardcover, 574 pages, ISBN 0-8218-0841-9
[edit] References
- Denis Brian Einstein: A Life (John Wiley and Sons, 1996) ISBN 0-471-11459-6
- Jacques Hadamard The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field (Dover, 1954) ISBN 0-486-20107-4
- C. G. Jung The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Volume 8. The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. (Princeton, 1981) ISBN 0-691-09774-7
- Robert Kanigel The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan (Washington Square Press, 1992) ISBN 0-671-75061-5
- Marie-Louise von Franz, Psyche and Matter (Shambhala, 1992) ISBN 0-87773-902-1
[edit] Notes
- ^ Hadamard, 1954, pp. 13-16.
- ^ Einstein, after years of fruitless calculations, suddenly had the solution of the general theory of relativity revealed in a dream “like a giant die making an indelible impress, a huge map of the universe outlined itself in one clear vision.” See Brian, 1996, p. 159.
- ^ G. H. Hardy cited how the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan had “moments of sudden illumination.” See Kanigel, 1992, pp. 285-286.
- ^ von Franz, 1992, p. 297 and 314. Cited work: B. L. van der Waerden, Einfall und Überlegung: Drei kleine Beiträge zur Psychologie des mathematischen Denkens (Gasel & Stuttgart, 1954).
- ^ von Franz, 1992, p. 297 and 314. Cited work: Harold Ruegg, Imagination: An Inquiry into the Sources and Conditions That Stimulate Creativity (New York: Harper, 1954).
- ^ Hadamard, 1954, p. 56.
- ^ von Franz, 1992, pp. 297-298.
- ^ von Franz, 1992 297-298 and 314.
- ^ Jung, 1981, paragraph 440, p. 231.
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