Weil, André (1906–1998)

French mathematician who worked on number theory and group theory, and contributed to the generalization of algebraic geometry. He was a founder member of a secretive group that published mathematical papers under the pseudonym Nicolas Bourbaki.

Weil was born and educated in Paris, the brother of political writer Simone Weil. In 1930 he went to India for two years as professor at Aligarh Muslim University. Returning to France, he took up a similar post at Strasbourg University. In 1940 he emigrated, and was professor at the University of São Paolo, Brazil, 1945–47. He moved to the USA and the University of Chicago 1947–58, and then transferred to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.

In 1929, Weil extended some work by Henri Poincaré; this resulted in the postulation of what is now called the Mordell–Weil theorem, which is closely connected to the theory of Diophantine equations.

Weil worked on quadratic forms with algebraic coefficients and extended Austrian mathematician Emil Artin's work on the theory of quadratic number fields.

Weil's chief work was Foundations of Algebraic Geometry (1946).