Jacques Tits

Jacques Tits (born August 12, 1930 in Uccle) is a French (and formerly Belgian) mathematician. He has written and cowritten a large number of papers on a number of subjects, principally group theory.

His academic career includes professorships at the Free University of Brussels (now split into the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel)(1962-1964), the University of Bonn (1964-1974) and the Collège de France in Paris, until becoming emeritus in 2000. He has been a French citizen and a member of the French Academy of Sciences since 1974.

He introduced the theory of "buildings" (sometimes known as "Tits buildings"), which are combinatorial structures on which groups act, particularly in algebraic group theory (including finite groups, and groups defined over the p-adic numbers). The related theory of (B, N) pairs is a basic tool in the theory of groups of Lie type. He also classified all polar spaces of rank at least three and introduced the generalized n-gons. Another of his well known theorems is the "Tits alternative": if "G" is a finitely generated subgroup of a linear group, then either "G" has a solvable subgroup of finite index or it has a free subgroup of rank 2.

Tits was an "honorary" member of the Nicolas Bourbaki group; as such, he helped popularize Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter's work, introducing terms such as Coxeter number, Coxeter group, and Coxeter graph.

Erratum Siobhan John McKay ~~~~Siobahn Roberts, [http://www.math.toronto.edu/mpugh/Coxeter.pdf "Donald Coxeter: The man who saved geometry"] , "Toronto Life", January 2003]

Tits received the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 1993, the Cantor Medal from the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung (German Mathematical Society) in 1996, and the German distinction "Pour le Mérite". In 2008 he was awarded the Abel Prize, along with John Griggs Thompson, “for their profound achievements in algebra and in particular for shaping modern group theory.”cite web
url = http://www.abelprisen.no/en/nyheter/nyhet.html?id=163
title = Thompson and Tits share the Abel Prize for 2008
publisher = The Niels Henrik Abel Memorial Fund
date = 2008-05-17
accessdate = 2008-05-20
archiveurl = http://www.webcitation.org/5XxtY4s3z
archivedate = 2008-05-20
quote = The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Abel Prize for 2008 to John Griggs Thompson, University of Florida and Jacques Tits, Collège de France. This was announced by the Academy’s President, Ole Didrik Lærum, at a press conference in Oslo today. Thompson and Tits receives the Abel Prize “for their profound achievements in algebra and in particular for shaping modern group theory”.] He is a member of several Academies of Sciences.

The Tits group is named after him.

References

External links

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* [http://www.abelprisen.no/nedlastning/2008/biography_en_tits.pdf Biography at the Abel Prize site] (pdf)