Archives of Peking University News - PKU English - 北京大学

北京大学英语新闻网/Peking University News
Professor Francois Loeser from Ecole
Delivered a Lecture on Formula
By Sun Yuxiang
PKU NEWS 2004—02—26
http://ennews.pku.edu.cn/news.php?s=77856732
Peking University, Beijing, Feb 26th, 2004: as part of the visiting schedule of the
Ecole Normale Supérieure visits to Peking University, professor Francois Loeser
from Ecole delivered a lecture under the title of ―What Is The Measure Of A Formula‖
in School of Mathematics of PKU this afternoon.
Francois Loeser is a professor of Mathematics at University Pierre et Marie Curie
(Paris) since 1989 and at the Ecole Normale Supérieure since 2000. Born in 1958,
he was a student at the Ecole Normale Superieure (1978-1982) and defended his
PhD Thesis in 1983. He started his research in Singularity Theory and is now a well
known expert in Algebraic Geometry and Number Theory with some interactions with
Logic and Model Theory. In the past few years, together with Jan Denef and other
collaborators, he developed the theory of motivic integration. This quite new topic is
developing quickly and has shown already a number of applications in Algebraic
Geometry and Number Theory. Francois Loeser also has been a Managing Editor of
the journal Asterisque (1994-2000) and Junior Member of the Institut Universitaire de
France (1992-1997).
The lecture is a general audience talk on some of their recent joint work with Jan
Denef. Starting from recalling classical additive invariants like counting points in finite
fields, Euler characteristic, scissor groups, he explained how one can attach a
geometric object to a formula, which, in a very natural way, can be considered as a
measure of that formula. At the end of his lecture, Prof. Loeser concluded by giving a
few applications to Number Theory.
What is remarkable at one of his fist lecture slices is that Prof. Loeser wrote ―to a
dedicated professor Wei-liang Chow (1911-1995)‖, who is a famous mathematician
on Algebraic Analysis with Chinese origin. He also expressed his welcome for
Chinese students to get further education in Ecole. At the end of his lecture, Prof.
Loeser said, in the new century, there have been and will be a lot of new things come
to the world and mathematics should develop to adapt to the new subjects and
technology.
1345