Georges Papy

Georges Léopold Anatole Papy (born November 4, 1920 in Anderlecht , † November 11, 2011 in Brussels ) was a Belgian mathematician and mathematics teacher.

Papy was in the Belgian resistance during World War II and also gave underground courses in mathematics for students at the University of Brussels and Jews in hiding. In 1945 he received his doctorate in mathematics at the University of Brussels with top marks ( la plus grande distinction ) and in 1951 he received his Agrégation de l'enseignement supérieur. From 1949 he was lecturer (Chef de Travaux) at the University of Brussels and from 1956 full professor of algebra. In 1955 he was at the Institute for Advanced Study . From the 1950s he was involved in the renewal of the curriculum according to contemporary mathematical currents (structural mathematics in the sense of Nicolas Bourbaki ), which became known as New Mathematics . In 1961 he founded the Belgian Center for Mathematics Education (Center Belge de Pédagogie de la Mathématique) and was internationally recognized as a leading expert who was consulted by UNESCO, OECD and IBM. In 1970 he was founding president of the Groupe International de Recherche en Pédagogie de la Mathématique in Nice and from 1960 to 1970 he was president of the Commission Internationale pour l'Étude et l'Amélioration de l'Enseignement des Mathématiques . From 1967 he and his wife Frédérique also began to reform elementary school mathematics, initially with experimental classes. Among other things, they introduced the concept of the minicomputer , where he attributed the idea to Georges Lemaître (with a realization that was inspired by the Cuisenaire chopsticks ). It was based on reproducing the binary representation of numbers in the form of colored 4x4 squares. In the 1970s, through the agency of its director Burt Kaufman, he was Research Director of the Comprehensive School Mathematics Program in the USA.

In 1963/64 he was a senator in the Belgian parliament .

In 1966 he was invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Moscow. His wife Frédérique Papy-Lenger (1921-2005) was also a well-known mathematics teacher with whom he worked, including on his six-volume series of textbooks Mathématique Moderne in the 1960s.

Fonts

• with Th. Lepage: Introduction à l´algèbre moderne, Volume 1, Brussels 1949
• Algèbre, Brussels 1956
• Quinze lecons de l´algèbre linéaire, Brussels 1959
• Groupes, Paris: Dunod 1961
  • English translation: Groups, Macmillan 1964
• Plane affine geometry and real numbers, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht 1965
• Groupoides, Brussels, Paris 1965
  • German translation: Simple linking structures: Gruppoide, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht 1969
• with F. Papy: Mathématique Moderne, 6 volumes, Brussels, Paris: Didier, 1963 to 1966 (of which Volume 2 Nombres réels et vectoriel plan, Volume 5 Arithmétique, Volume 6 Géometrie plane)
  • German edition: The first elements of new mathematics, Otto Salle Verlag, 2 volumes (Volume 2: The projective level and graphs) 1968, second edition Diesterweg, Salle 1971
• L'Enfant et les Graphes, Paris: Didier 1969
• Minicomputer, Brussels: Ivac 1969
• Topology as the basis of analysis lessons, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht 1970 (French original: Le premier enseignement de l'analyse)
• Elements of modern geometry, Klett 1967, 1970
• Introduction to vector spaces, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht 1965

Web links

• Terry Kaufman, Edward Martin, Iain Ferguson, biography at IMACS, English
• Website dedicated to him with a list of publications