Francesco Severi

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This article is about the twentieth-century mathematician. For the Baroque composer and castrato of the same name, see Francesco Severi (composer).
Francesco Severi
Born13 April 1879
Italy
Died8 December 1961(1961-12-08) (aged 82)
Rome
Nationality (legal)Italian
Alma materUniversità di Torino, 1900
Known forAlgebraic geometry, several complex variables
AwardsGold medal of the Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei XL (1906)
Prix Bordin (1907) (jointly with Federigo Enriques)
Guccia Medal (1908)
"Premio reale" of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (1913)
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsUniversità di Torino, Università di Bologna, Università di Padova, Università di Roma, Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica (now Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica Francesco Severi)
Doctoral advisorCorrado Segre
Other academic advisorsEnrico d'Ovidio, Federigo Enriques, Eugenio Bertini
Doctoral studentsAldo Andreotti, Enzo Martinelli, Guido Zappa
Other notable studentsLuigi Fantappiè, Gaetano Fichera
Francesco Severi (photo by Konrad Jacobs)

Francesco Severi (13 April 1879 – 8 December 1961) was an Italian mathematician. He was the chair of the committee on Fields Medal on 1936, at the first delivery.

Severi was born in Arezzo, Italy. He is famous for his contributions to algebraic geometry and the theory of functions of several complex variables. He became the effective leader of the Italian school of algebraic geometry. Together with Federigo Enriques, he won the Bordin prize from the French Academy of Sciences.

He contributed in a major way to birational geometry, the theory of algebraic surfaces, in particular of the curves lying on them, the theory of moduli spaces and the theory of functions of several complex variables. He wrote prolifically, and some of his work (following the intuition-led approach of Federigo Enriques) has subsequently been shown to be not rigorous according to the then new standards set in particular by Oscar Zariski and David Mumford. Although many of his arguments have since been made rigorous, a significant fraction were not only lacking in rigor but also wrong (in contrast to the work of Enriques, which though not rigorous was almost entirely correct). At the personal level, according to Roth (1963) he was easily offended, and he was involved in a number of controversies. Most notably, he was a staunch supporter of the Italian fascist regime of Benito Mussolini and was included on a committee of academics that was to conduct an anti-semitic purge of all scholarly societies and academic institutions.[1] He died in Rome of cancer.

Selected publications

All the mathematical works of Francesco Severi, except all books, are collected in the six volumes of his "Opere Matematiche".

  • Severi, Francesco (2 March 1931), "Sur une propriété fondamentale des fonctions analytiques de plusieurs variables", Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences (in French), 192: 596–599, Zbl 0001.14802, available at Gallica. The paper containing the first proof of Morera's theorem for holomorphic functions of several variables.
  • Severi, Francesco (1931a), "Risoluzione del problema generale di Dirichlet per le funzioni biarmoniche" [Solution of the general Dirichlet problem for biharmonic functions], Rendiconti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Classe di Scienze Fisiche, Matematiche e Naturali, series 6 (in Italian), 13: 795–804, JFM 57.0393.01, Zbl 0002.34202. The announce of the solution of the Dirichlet problem for pluriharmonic functions for domains with real analytic boundaries.
  • Severi, Francesco (1932), "Una proprietà fondamentale dei campi di olomorfismo di una funzione analitica di una variabile reale e di una variabile complessa" [A fundamental property of the domain of holomorphy of an analytic function of one real variable and one complex variable], Rendiconti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Classe di Scienze Fisiche, Matematiche e Naturali, series 6 (in Italian), 15: 487–490, JFM 58.0352.05, Zbl 0004.40702. In this paper Severi describes the "passage from real to complex" method he developed in order to deal with several problems in the theory of functions of several complex variables.
  • Severi, Francesco (1942–1943), "A proposito d'un teorema di Hartogs" [About a theorem of Hartogs], Commentarii Mathematici Helvetici (in Italian), 15 (1): 350–352, doi:10.1007/bf02565650, MR 0010730, Zbl 0028.15301. In this work Severi gives his proof of the Hartogs' extension theorem.
  • Severi, Francesco (1958), Lezioni sulle funzioni analitiche di più variabili complesse – Tenute nel 1956–57 all'Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica in Roma [Lectures on analytic functions of several complex variables – Lectured in 1956–57 at the Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica in Rome] (in Italian), Padova: CEDAM – Casa Editrice Dott. Antonio Milani, pp. XIV+255, Zbl 0094.28002. Notes from a course held by Francesco Severi at the Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica (which at present bears his name), containing appendices of Enzo Martinelli, Giovanni Battista Rizza and Mario Benedicty.
  • Severi, Francesco (1971), Opere matematiche. Memorie e note Vol. I (PDF) (in Italian), Roma: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (distributed by Bardi Editore), pp. XLII+491, MR 0701703, Zbl 0582.01027 (available from the "Edizione Nazionale Mathematica Italiana"). His "Mathematical works, Memoirs and Notes": the complete collection, with the exception of books, of Francesco Severi's scientific contributions. The reprinted works, written in Italian, French, German, retain their original language in an improved typographical form amended from typographical errors and author's oversights: also, a comment of Severi was added to several papers. Volume I collects works published from 1900 to 1908.
  • Severi, Francesco (1974), Opere matematiche. Memorie e note Vol. II (PDF) (in Italian), Roma: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (distributed by Bardi Editore), p. 567, MR 0701702, Zbl 0582.01027 (available from the "Edizione Nazionale Mathematica Italiana"). His "Mathematical works, Memoirs and Notes": the complete collection, with the exception of books, of Francesco Severi's scientific contributions. The reprinted works, written in Italian, French, German, retain their original language in an improved typographical form amended from typographical errors and author's oversights: also, a comment of Severi was added to several papers. Volume II collects works published from 1909 to 1917.
  • Severi, Francesco (1977), Opere matematiche. Memorie e note Vol. III (PDF) (in Italian), Roma: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (distributed by Bardi Editore), p. 603, MR 0701700, Zbl 0582.01027 (available from the "Edizione Nazionale Mathematica Italiana"). His "Mathematical works, Memoirs and Notes": the complete collection, with the exception of books, of Francesco Severi's scientific contributions. The reprinted works, written in Italian, French, German, retain their original language in an improved typographical form amended from typographical errors and author's oversights: also, a comment of Severi was added to several papers. Volume III collects works published from 1918 to 1932.
  • Severi, Francesco (1980), Opere matematiche. Memorie e note Vol. IV (PDF) (in Italian), Roma: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (distributed by Bardi Editore), p. 603, MR 0701701, Zbl 0582.01027 (available from the "Edizione Nazionale Mathematica Italiana"). His "Mathematical works, Memoirs and Notes": the complete collection, with the exception of books, of Francesco Severi's scientific contributions. The reprinted works, written in Italian, French, German, retain their original language in an improved typographical form amended from typographical errors and author's oversights: also, a comment of Severi was added to several papers. Volume IV collects works published from 1933 to 1941.
  • Severi, Francesco (1988), Opere matematiche. Memorie e note Vol. V (PDF) (in Italian), Roma: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (distributed by Bardi Editore), p. 553, MR 1030994 (available from the "Edizione Nazionale Mathematica Italiana"). His "Mathematical works, Memoirs and Notes": the complete collection, with the exception of books, of Francesco Severi's scientific contributions. The reprinted works, written in Italian, French, German, retain their original language in an improved typographical form amended from typographical errors and author's oversights: also, a comment of Severi was added to several papers. Volume V collects works published from 1942 to 1948.
  • Severi, Francesco (1989), Opere matematiche. Memorie e note Vol. VI (PDF) (in Italian), Roma: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (distributed by Bardi Editore), p. 499, MR 1030995 (available from the "Edizione Nazionale Mathematica Italiana"). His "Mathematical works, Memoirs and Notes": the complete collection, with the exception of books, of Francesco Severi's scientific contributions. The reprinted works, written in Italian, French, German, retain their original language in an improved typographical form amended from typographical errors and author's oversights: also, a comment of Severi was added to several papers. Volume VI collects works published from 1949 to 1961.

Articles on Scientia

Reviews

See also

References

  1. ^ Goodstein, Judith; Babbitt, Donald (2012). "A Fresh Look at Francesco Severi". Notices of the American Mathematical Society. 59 (8): 1064. doi:10.1090/noti881.

Biographical and general references

Scientific references

External links

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