Michel Pierre Talagrand (born 15 February 1952) is a French mathematician. Doctor of Science since 1977, he has been, since 1985, Directeur de Recherches at CNRS and a member of the Functional Analysis Team of the Institut de mathématiques de Jussieu in Paris. Talagrand was also a faculty member at The Ohio State University for more than fifteen years. Talagrand was elected as correspondent of the Académie des sciences of Paris in March 1997, and then as a full member in November 2004, in the Mathematics section. In 2024, Talagrand received the Abel Prize.[1]

Michel Talagrand
Talagrand in 1995
Born (1952-02-15) 15 February 1952 (age 72)
NationalityFrench
Alma materParis VI University
Known forTalagrand's concentration inequality
AwardsLoève Prize (1995)
Fermat Prize (1997)
Shaw Prize (2019)
Abel Prize (2024)
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsCNRS
Doctoral advisorGustave Choquet

Talagrand studies mainly functional analysis and probability theory and their applications.

Career

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Talagrand has been interested in probability with minimal structure. He has obtained a complete characterization of bounded Gaussian processes in very general settings, and also new methods to bound stochastic processes. He discovered new aspects of the isoperimetric and concentration of measure phenomena for product spaces, by obtaining inequalities which make use of new kinds of distances between a point and a subset of a product space. These inequalities show in great generality that a random quantity which depends on many independent variables, without depending too much on any one of them, has only small fluctuations. These inequalities helped to solve several classical problems in probability theory on Banach spaces, and have also transformed the abstract theory of stochastic processes. These inequalities have been successfully used in many applications involving stochastic quantities, like for instance in statistical mechanics (disordered systems), theoretical computer science, random matrices, and statistics (empirical processes).

Talagrand commented in the introduction to his two volume monograph on mean field models of spin glasses:

More generally theoretical physicists have discovered wonderful new areas of mathematics, which they have explored by their methods. This book is an attempt to correct this anomaly by exploring these areas using mathematical methods, and an attempt to bring these marvelous questions to the attention of the mathematical community.[2]

In particular, the monograph offers an exposition of Talagrand's proof [3] of the validity of the Parisi formula.

Michel Talagrand was awarded the Abel Prize from The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters for 2024 for his work in ‘Suprema of stochastic processes’, ‘Concentration of measures’ and ‘Spin glass’.[4]

Personal life

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He is married to Wansoo Rhee, a now retired professor of management science at The Ohio State University, whom he met on his first ever trip to the USA. They have two sons.[5]

Awards

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Selected publications

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Reference Books

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b "Michel Talagrand awarded the 2024 Abel Prize". The Abel Prize. Archived from the original on 2024-03-20. Retrieved 2024-03-20.
  2. ^ Talagrand, Michel (2010-11-12). Mean Field Models for Spin Glasses: Volume I: Basic Examples. Berlin Heidelberg: Springer. p. xii. ISBN 978-3-642-15201-6.
  3. ^ Talagrand, Michel (2006-01-01). "The Parisi formula". Annals of Mathematics. 163 (1): 221–263. doi:10.4007/annals.2006.163.221. ISSN 0003-486X.
  4. ^ "Michel Talagrand awarded the 2024 Abel Prize | the Abel Prize".
  5. ^ "Michel Talagrand: A brief biography | The Abel Prize". abelprize.no. Retrieved 2024-03-28.
  6. ^ Assemblées des Professeurs. Comptes-rendus XX-XXIèmes siècles. Paris: Service archives du Collège de France.
  7. ^ Talagrand, Michel (1990). "Some isoperimetric inequalities and their applications". Proc. Int. Congress of Mathematicians, Kyoto. Vol. 2. pp. 1011–1024. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.465.1304.
  8. ^ "The Loeve Prize". University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 2024-03-22.
  9. ^ "Lauréats du prix Fermat". Université Paul Sabatier. Institut de Mathématiques de Toulouse (in French). 2023-11-21. Retrieved 2024-03-22.
  10. ^ Talagrand, Michel (1998). "Huge random structures and mean field models for spin glasses". Doc. Math. (Bielefeld) Extra Vol. ICM Berlin, 1998, vol. I. pp. 507–536. Archived from the original on 2019-08-07. Retrieved 2019-11-04.
  11. ^ "Le Français Michel Talagrand reçoit le prix Abel, prestigieuse récompense en mathématiques". Le Monde.fr (in French). 2024-03-20. Retrieved 2024-03-22.
  12. ^ "Michel Talagrand, lauréat du prix Abel 2024". Academie Sciences. Retrieved 2024-03-22.
  13. ^ "Ordre de la Légion d'honneur - Nominations, promotions et élévations du 31-12-2010". France Phaleristique. Retrieved 2024-03-22.
  14. ^ "2019 Mathematical Sciences". The Shaw Prize. Retrieved 2024-03-22.
  15. ^ "News". www.impan.pl. Archived from the original on 2022-09-22. Retrieved 2022-09-22.
  16. ^ Auffinger, Antonio (2015). "Book Review: Upper and lower bounds for stochastic processes". Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. 53 (1): 173–177. doi:10.1090/bull/1511. ISSN 0273-0979.
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