Abstract
Tits was a Belgian child prodigy who turned out to be a great genius among mathematicians. At age nine, he could solve quadratic equations. At age 13, he knew Calculus, actually Real variables, that he studied quickly by himself in a two volume course due to the famous Charles-Jean de La Vallée Poussin. He started teaching this material to engineering students who were meeting difficulties. He presented a reputed entrance examination at the Ecole Polytechnique of the Université libre de Bruxelles, he succeeded as best of all students and so, he became a freshman in Mathematics at age 14. In the third year, he accomplished deep research all by himself on sharply 3-transitive groups and more. Thus he got his first degree in mathematics at 18 and his PhD at 19.
This article is based on a conversation between Jacques and Marie-Jeanne Tits, and Francis and Monique Buekenhout, which took place in the apartment of Tits in Paris on June 30, 2011.
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Notes
- 1.
Johan D’Hondt, Livre de famille préparé à l’occasion du quatre-vingtième anniversaire d’Yvonne Bingen-Tits (130 pages, February 2009). Warm thanks are due to my friend Franz Bingen who provided me with this text.
- 2.
The interview was made in Paris, September 21, 2006, and will appear in “The Collected Works of Jacques Tits”, The Publishing House of the European Mathematical Society, Zürich.
- 3.
This statement is due to Jacques.
- 4.
A letter dated July 17, 1987.
- 5.
In the famous translation to French by the Belgian engineer and historian of mathematics, Paul Ver Eecke (1867–1959).
- 6.
“The Collected Works of Jacques Tits” (loc.sit.).
- 7.
Translated from German by Ms. Charlotte Bouckaert.
- 8.
It will be included in “The Collected Works of Jacques Tits” (loc.sit.).
- 9.
To appear in “The Collected Works of Jacques Tits” (loc.sit.).
- 10.
S.S. Chern and F. Hirzebruch (editors), “Wolf Prize in Mathematics”, vol. 2, 2001, World Scientific, Singapore.
- 11.
“Buildings of spherical type and finite BN-pairs.” Springer Lecture Notes, vol. 386, 1974.
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1 Electronic Supplementary Material
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An interview with the Abel Laureates 2008, John G. Thompson and Jacques Tits, by C. Skau (NTNU, Norway) and M. Raussen (Aalborg, Denmark) (MP4 380.6 MB)
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Buekenhout, F. (2014). A Biography of Jacques Tits. In: Holden, H., Piene, R. (eds) The Abel Prize 2008-2012. The Abel Prize. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39449-2_3
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