Goursat

Edouard Jean-Baptiste Goursat

Born: 21 May 1858 in Lanzac, Lot, France
Died: 25 Nov 1936 in Paris, France

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Edouard Goursat received his doctorate in 1881 from École Normale Supérieure, then taught in Toulouse until 1885. The next 12 years were spent back at École Normale Supérieure, then he taught analysis at the University of Paris until his retirement. His teachers included Darboux and Hermite who influenced him to work on analysis and its applications.

Goursat had a lifelong association with Emile Picard. Julia, who was Goursat's student, later collaborated with him. The Cauchy-Goursat theorem states the integral of a function round a simple closed contour is zero if the function is analytic inside the contour. Cauchy had established the theorem with the added condition that the derivative of the function was continuous. In 1891 he wrote Lecons sur l'intégration des équations aux dérivées partielles du premier ordre.

Goursat's best known work is Cours d'analyse mathématique (1900-10) which introduced many new analysis concepts. Goursat became a member of the French Academy of Science in 1919.

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  3. Jubilé scientifique de M Édouard Goursat (Paris, 1936). 
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