11 Facts About Henri Cartan

Henri Cartan was the son of the mathematician Elie Cartan, nephew of mathematician Anna Cartan, oldest brother of composer Jean Cartan, physicist Louis Cartan and mathematician Helene Cartan, and the son-in-law of physicist Pierre Weiss.

Henri Cartan moved to Paris with his family after his father's appointment at Sorbonne in 1909 and he attended secondary school at Lycee Hoche in Versailles.

In 1932 Henri Cartan was invited to give a Cours Peccot at the College de France.

Henri Cartan was awarded the Emile Picard Medal in 1959, the CNRS Gold Medal in 1976, and the Wolf Prize in 1980.

Henri Cartan was an invited Speaker at the International Congress of Mathematics in 1932 in Zurich and a Plenary Speaker at the ICM in 1950 in Cambridge, Massachusetts and in 1958 in Edinburgh.

Henri Cartan was awarded Honorary Doctorates from Munster, ETH Zurich, Oslo, Sussex, Cambridge, Stockholm, Oxford University, Zaragoza and Athens.

Since the 30's Henri Cartan had tight collaborations with many German mathematicians, including Heinrich Behnke and Peter Thullen.

Henri Cartan supported the idea of European Federalism and from 1974 to 1985 was president of the French section of the Union of European Federalists.

Henri Cartan worked in several fields across algebra, geometry and analysis, focussing primarily on algebraic topology and homological algebra.

Henri Cartan was a founding member of the Bourbaki group in 1934 and one of its most active participants.

Henri Cartan's 1956 book with Samuel Eilenberg on homological algebra was an important text, treating the subject with a moderate level of abstraction with the help of category theory.