AKA Pierre Joseph Louis Fatou

Born: 28-Feb-1878
Birthplace: Lorient, France
Died: 10-Aug-1929
Location of death: Pornichet, France
Cause of death: Abdominal Hemorrhage

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Mathematician, Astronomer

Nationality: France
Executive summary: Complex analytic dynamics

French mathematician Pierre Fatou studied integration theory and complex function theory, and was the first to define what is now called the Mandelbrot set, in 1905. He developed a fundamental theory of iteration in 1917 (concurrent with Gaston Julia), showed that a harmonic function u > 0 in a ball has a non-tangential limit at almost every point on the boundary, and examined the convergence and the analytic extension of the Taylor series. Despite his accomplishments in mathematics, Fatou was unable to find work in that field, and instead spent his entire career at the Paris Observatory, where he conducted respected research on double stars.

    High School: Collège Stanislas de Paris
    University: BA Mathematics, École Normale Supérieure
    University: PhD Mathematics, École Normale Supérieure (1907)
    Scholar: Ass't Astronomer, Paris Observatory (1901-28)
    Professor: Astronomy, Paris Observatory (1928-29)

    French Legion of Honor

Author of books:
Séries trigonométriques et séries de Taylor (1906, mathematics)
Fonctions automorphes (1929, mathematics)

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