Roger Godement

Roger Godement (French: [ɡɔdmɑ̃]; October 1, 1921 – July 21, 2016)[2] was a French mathematician, known for his work in functional analysis as well as his expository books.

Roger Godement
Born(1921-10-01)October 1, 1921
Le Havre
DiedJuly 21, 2016(2016-07-21) (aged 94)
NationalityFrench
Alma materÉcole Normale Supérieure
Known forBochner–Godement theorem
Godement resolution
Godement compactness criterion
Monads in category theory[1]
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsParis Diderot University
Doctoral advisorHenri Cartan
Doctoral studentsHervé Jacquet
Christophe Soulé

Biography

Godement started as a student at the École normale supérieure in 1940, where he became a student of Henri Cartan. He started research into harmonic analysis on locally compact abelian groups, finding a number of major results; this work was in parallel but independent of similar investigations in the USSR and Japan. Work on the abstract theory of spherical functions published in 1952 proved very influential in subsequent work, particularly that of Harish-Chandra. The isolation of the concept of square-integrable representation is attributed to him. The Godement compactness criterion in the theory of arithmetic groups was a conjecture of his. He later worked with Jacquet on the zeta function of a simple algebra.

He was an active member of the Bourbaki group in the early 1950s, and subsequently gave a number of significant Bourbaki seminars. He also took part in the Cartan seminar.

His book Topologie Algébrique et Théorie des Faisceaux from 1958 was, as he said, a very unoriginal idea for the time (that is, to write an exposition of sheaf theory); as a non-specialist, he managed to write an enduring classic. It introduced the technical method of flasque resolutions, nowadays called Godement resolutions. It has also been credited as the place in which a comonad can first be discerned.

He also wrote texts on Lie groups, abstract algebra and mathematical analysis.

Selected publications
  • Godement, Roger (1952). "A theory of spherical functions. I". Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. 73 (3): 496–556. doi:10.2307/1990805. MR 0052444.
  • Topologie algébrique et théorie des faisceaux. Hermann 1958, 1960.
  • Cours d´algèbre. Hermann 1963, 1966.
  • Algebra. Hermann 1968.
  • Godement, R. (1970), Notes on Jacquet–Langlands' theory, Institute for Advanced Study
  • Godement, Roger; Jacquet, Hervé (1972). Zeta functions of simple algebras. Lecture Notes in Mathematics. 260. Berlin-New York: Springer-Verlag. MR 0342495.
  • Analyse mathématique. 4 vols., Springer-Verlag 1998–2001.
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References
  1. Roger Godement, Topologie Algébrique et Théorie des Faisceaux. Actualités Sci. Ind. No. 1252. Publ. Math. Univ. Strasbourg. No. 13 Hermann, Paris 1958. See also: Barr, Michael; Wells, Charles (1985), "Toposes, Triples and Theories" (PDF), Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften, Springer-Verlag, 278, p. 120, ISBN 0-387-96115-1..
  2. "Décès de Roger Godement | Société Mathématique de France". smf.emath.fr. Retrieved 29 July 2016.
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