A Lady Mathematician in this Strange Universe: Memoirs

Yvonne Choquet–Bruhat

• Publisher: WSPC
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9789813231641
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Physics
• Index: Physics

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In A Lady Mathematician, the distinguished mathematician and physicist, Yvonne Choquet–Bruhat, at the urging of her children, recounts and reflects upon various key events and people from her life — first childhood memories of France, then schooling, followed by graduate studies, and finally her continuous research in the mathematics of General Relativity and other fundamental physical fields. She recalls conversations, collaborations and even arguments shared with many great scientists, including her experiences with Albert Einstein. She also describes some of her numerous trips around the world, spurred by a passion for travel, beauty and mathematics. At once reflective, enlightening and bittersweet, this book allows readers a look into the life and thought processes of an esteemed female academic.

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--> Contents:

• Prologue
• Ancestors
• Good Daddy, Aunt Mary, Mame and Tonton
• My Parents
• Childhood and Adolescence
• Youth 1940–1944
• Disaster 1944–1946
• Life in Montaigne
• A New Life, America
• Marseille 1953–1955
• Transitions 1957–1964
• First Years in Antony 1965–1968
• After the Reform 1968–1979
• Academician 1979
• Life Continues 1979–1990
• Retirement 1990–2003
• A I'I.H.E.S 2003–?
• Far Away Travels
• Our House in Dammartin
• Epilogue

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--> Readership: The general public, academics and students with a specific interest in the life of Yvonne Choquet–Bruhat and/or a general interest in the life of an accomplished mathematician and theoretical physicist. -->
Keywords:Autobiography;Yvonne Choquet–Bruhat;Mathematics;Physics;General Relativity;Einstein;Field Equations;Research;TravelReview:0

1

ANCESTORS

The Bruhat

My father’s ancestors, I have heard, lived in Auvergne, a province in the center of France where the Gaul army, led by Vercingetorix, had been defeated by Jules Cesar in forty-six before Christ. My great-grandparents lived near the city of Brioude, which enjoys a beautiful Roman cathedral. My great-grandfather had two children, Antoine, my grandfather, and his younger sister, Marie. My sister, my brother and myself called her Aunt Marie. According to Aunt Marie, my great-grandfather was the twin of the twelfth and last child of his parents. Growing up, he worked by breaking stones for roads. As a child I was impressed by the social upheaval of the Bruhat family from the profession of stone breaker on roads to a comparatively higher one of colonel and school teacher. Later, my brother told me that our ancestor had, in fact, owned a small movable firm. He had married a girl named Pizel, of whom I know nothing. Aunt Marie had kept in contact with some of Pizel’s cousins. One of them emigrated in Algeria as a school teacher. He had taken his job very seriously, and, according to Marie, had done his best to help his students, as she did for her students in the school of the school of the French Republic in Congy, a village in Champagne. My father, already an adult, came to know another physicist named Bruhat coming from Brioude. They discovered they were cousins and became friends.

My paternal grandfather, Antoine Bruhat, had made a career as a military man, rising from the ranks. He was retired when I knew him. He still had great bearing, tall for the times, and he kept his bearing quite straight. He had white hair and a beautiful white mustache. We often referred to him as a colonel. I learned later that he was only a lieutenant-colonel, because he did not have the diploma required to be an officer. While he was a young soldier garrisoned in Besançon, he had married Jeanne Aberjou, a girl of the local upper middle class. He had made to her nine children, all still-born except the second, my father, who was born quite small after only seven months of pregnancy. The others, born on time with a normal weight, could not get out from the maternal womb without being cut up. This story, told by Aunt Marie, had horrified my mother. She did not forgive her father-in-law for making nine children to his wife under these conditions. This unfortunate woman died at about forty-five, at the beginning of the First World War, probably from uterus cancer. She had only the assistance of her sister-in-law, Marie, as her husband and son were in the army.

My grandfather did not speak much with his grandchildren, and my father did not like to evoke painful memories. I know nothing of my grandmother’s family. I think it was socially higher than my maternal grandparents, Hubert, because my mother told me she had asked her father, a school teacher, not to show nor feel any inferiority when meeting the colonel Antoine Bruhat before her marriage with my father. She regretted that he had felt so before the marriage of my maternal uncle, René, with the daughter of a professor in the Sorbonne. The encounter between Eugène Hubert and Antoine Bruhat went smoothly, though Eugène, as a dedicated teacher of the public school, was Dreyfusard, while Antoine was anti-Dreyfusard, as a faithful member of the army. Both were civilized men and satisfied with the marriage of their children.

Aunt Marie told us that Georges, my father, was a boy devoted to his mother. He spent many hours quietly, near her, when she had to stay in bed because of the repeated tragic deliveries. He did not speak to us about his mother, but gave her first name, Jeanne, to his eldest daughter. Marie liked her sister-in-law, a woman who married young, and possessed culture and a sweet temper. However, she did not feel very close to her as their characters and lives were too different.

The Hubert

What I know of my roots mainly come from my mother’s ancestors. They were workers or farmers in villages in the vicinity of Mantes-la-Jolie, a city of île de France. Among my great-great-grandparents, only one had been a foreigner. He was named Galeppi and came from Lugano, in the Italian part of Switzerland. A worker making his traditional “tour de France”, he had fallen in love with a great-great-grandmother of mine and married her. He settled in France, near his wife’s family, in Dammartin en Serve, a village 3 km from Longnes. His birthplace, which seemed very far away in those times, and his merry character had kept alive his memory among his descendants. His daughter, my great-grandmother, married a M. Lainé, of whom I know nothing. They had two children: my grandmother Louise, and a younger daughter named Berthe who died from diphtheria at eight. My mother was named after her. When widowed, Mme Lainé came to live with her daughter. My mother, her granddaughter, was very fond of Mme Lainé. She described Mme Lainé as a very open and warm-hearted woman, probably like her Swiss-Italian father. Fairly or otherwise, my mother blamed herself for her grandmother’s death. The old lady had come to see her in Sévres, and my mother had taken her for an outing in a cab. She died from pneumonia a few weeks later. My mother believed it had been the result of a cold caught then.

The ancestors of my grandfather Hubert owned a small farm at La Fortelle, a hamlet near the village Longnes, fifteen kilometers from Mantes. They were hard working small farmers. I don’t know much about them, though Longnes is only some sixty kilometers from Paris. I know that my great-grandfather Hubert had at least another son apart from my grandfather; for my mother he was “Uncle Jules.” He had died from diabetes, as did later, his junior, my grandfather Eugène. Some years before his death Uncle Jules had been amputated, first from one leg, then from the other, because of gangrene. He had valiantly coped with these amputations.

I have not had the opportunity to know my grandfather, Eugène Hubert, who died when I was still a baby. He was, according to my mother, a remarkable man of great intelligence and humanity. Born and brought up in a family of small farmers, his exceptional qualities were recognized by his school teacher who obtained, for him when he was fourteen, a position called “student-master”. There was, in those times, one school in each village with one class for students of all grades. The “student master” was in charge of the cleaning up of the classroom and the lighting and functioning of the stove. He was also in charge of part of the teaching for younger students. In exchange for these duties, the “student master” had a small indemnity for food and perhaps, lodging. He could prepare for the examination to become a school teacher, which my grandfather promptly did and got the diploma. A few years later he was promoted and posted to Paris. He then went to live near the canal Saint Martin, with my grandmother. He was appreciated by his students and colleagues. They gave him the responsibility of managing the funds to help persons with difficulties, in particular with sickness. My mother thought that her father might have caught tuberculosis from their files; he died from it when he was only sixty years old.

This former “student master” fathered two children. A boy, René, born in 1885, and seven years later, with the prompting of his spouse, my mother, Berthe. Both were admitted to study at “École Normale Supérieure”.

My grandmother, born Louise Lainé in 1860, had left school early to work in the esparto factory of Dammartin en Serve, which made carpets and other objects with rope. A museum has recently been created in its former place, exhibiting memories from these times. My grandmother did not even have the “Certificat d’Etudes”. She had, however, good handwriting and a knack for not making spelling mistakes. She stopped working outside of home after her marriage with my grandfather. I know nothing of the circumstances of this marriage, a union between a young workwoman and a school teacher from a nearby village. I think that Louise Lainé had been quite a pretty girl. In her old age she had kept very blue eyes and white and fine skin in spite of its wrinkles. My grandmother did not speak much about herself. I remember she confided to me that she had been sad to remain the only child of her parents after the death of her little sister. That was why she gave my mother the first name of that lost sister. My grandmother never confided in me about her married life. I know only that she had once told my mother, who repeated it to me, “I have been happy two years,” without further explanation. I remember she told me she had strongly insisted for her husband to give her a second child, my mother, and the pleasure she had had feeding her at the breast, a thing she had not been able to do for her son.

My mother’s family lived together in Paris after Eugène was appointed there. They spent their holidays in the small house at Dammartin en Serve that my grandmother had inherited from her family. She remained, always, very fond of that house. The house, enlarged off the neighboring one, has belonged to my parents, then to their children who held family meetings there. It belongs now to one of their granddaughters who lives near Paris.

2

GOOD DADDY, AUNT MARIE, MAME AND TONTON

Good Daddy

When I knew my grandfather Antoine Bruhat, he lived in a comfortable rented apartment on rue d’Artois in Paris, near “La Madeleine”. We called him “Bon-papa”, that is, “good daddy”. My mother, who did not much like her father-in-law — without showing it in the presence of her husband — once asked us ironically: “Is your father bad daddy?” Bon-papa had a governess of a certain age who also lived in the apartment. She called my father “Monsieur Georges”. Her name was Suzanne and she was in charge of cleaning and cooking. My father was not very close in spirit to his own father, but he was his only child, and very conscientious. We saw Bon-papa regularly. We sometimes went to have lunch at his place; he kept some toys for his grandchildren. I remember a toy grocery store which Suzanne furnished with real products. I remember that once, Bon-papa took us, my sister and I, to the officers’ club to see some performance that I have long forgotten, but I remember vividly how proud I was to have been taken there. My grandfather came fairly often to lunch at our place, or to spend some time with us at Dammartin or some other place where we holidayed. He died in 1935, soon after the nomination of his son at the scientific direction of the École Normale Supérieure, which had made him very proud. He was only eighty years old. He used to say, “My father lived until he was ninety-two, and he did not take care of himself; I do!” He had invested a fairly important sum in an annuity, a short time before his death. According to my mother, he had started acting imprudently after getting acquainted with a woman younger than him. Suspicion of the existence of this late-in-life friend came to my mother from the sight of an unknown lady who put, discreetly, a bunch of violets on the grave of my grandfather on the day of his burial. The fact is that he had a stroke. I had been shocked when I saw Bon-papa in his apartment after this accident. He had become an old man who seldom left his armchair. The following winter, he caught pneumonia, and antibiotics had not existed yet. He died in a few weeks, in spite of the care of my mother, his sister Marie and a nun acting as a nurse. My mother had started friendly relations with the young woman, and suggested they continue after my grandfather’s death, but the young nun said it was not compatible with the rules of her order.

I feared the shame of not shedding tears at Bon-papa’s burial, but thanks to the environment and the music, I cried copiously.

Aunt Marie

Aunt Marie, of some years younger than her brother Antoine, had remained unmarried. She once told my mother that a young man had come to ask permission from her father to marry her when she had still been living with her parents. He had been rebuked and Marie had heard of it much later, like the Marie of the book by Germaine Acremant “Ces Dames aux Chapeaux Verts”. In her case, there had been no Arlette to straighten out destiny. Marie remained with her parents and took care of them in their old age, until their death. She told this story to my mother without acrimony.

Aunt Marie lived in Congy, a small village in the neighbor-hood of the city of Epernay in Champagne, where she had been a school teacher until her retirement. She knew everybody there; many had been her students and remained fond of her, but we were her only family, as my father was her only nephew. Marie had a happy temperament. She never complained. She would laugh at her own jokes. She liked to speak of her daily life and reminisce. My mother, a woman hard to please, liked her. Marie came to stay with us every year for a few weeks, either in Paris or in Dammartin. It is from Aunt Marie that we heard of the Bruhat family and my father’s childhood.

My mother had a grudge against the whole world after the death of my father, and she stopped seeing most of her friends. However, Aunt Marie’s visits, unchanged, remained as welcome as before. She stayed with us for a month each winter until her advanced years forced her to leave — first her house, then the retirement home where she had kept some autonomy. She had chosen that home close enough to Congy to receive visits from the friends she had made there — that is, those who were still alive, who became few, even among her former students. Before making the choice of this shelter for her old days, Marie had come to Paris and visited several retirement homes with my mother. One of them, fairly close to our apartment, seemed convenient to her, but she finally chose a retirement home near Congy. She told my mother, “Here I will know only you.” My mother was a bit hurt, though she understood and was perhaps relieved.

Marie kept a bed, wardrobe, table and armchair to furnish the bedroom of her new residence. She gave us the remainder for Dammartin, where furniture was missing since the fate (firewood) given by the German army to that inherited from Bon-papa. We let Aunt Marie believe that the furniture of her living-room was going to furnish the room of the same name in Dammartin. She was very pleased with that. In fact, it furnished, very nicely, the large kitchen where we had our meals when there were not too many of us.

Marie was satisfied with her new home. Unfortunately, time continues to run. Marie had to leave for the geriatric hospital of Epernay after she broke a bone. Her friends, dead or too old, did not visit her anymore. Her grandnieces and grandnephew, who lived too far and were too busy, did not come often. In agreement with her character, she did not complain but asked that we write to her. After her death, I found in her drawer, not without remorse, the too-few postcards I had sent to her. I remember, with gratitude, my visit to Aunt Marie after my divorce. A practicing Catholic, she could have blamed me. She did not, but instead gave me her best wishes of happiness. The furniture of her room in the retirement home are now in my house, the only ones coming from my youth.

Aunt Marie lived to a hundred and three. I remember the ceremony organized to celebrate her centenary at the geriatric hospital where she had shared a room with other old ladies and had moved by pushing a chair. Aunt Marie had kept her head. Several times she interrupted the speech of the mayor celebrating her anniversary by saying in a kind tone, “No, mister mayor, it was not quite like that.” That day, one of her roommates told me, “She raises the spirits of us all.” After the ceremony, however, when I wished her many more years to live, she said, “You wish me much harm.” She died peacefully, not awakening from the coma she had entered in her sleep.

Mamé

My grandmother, whom we called Mamé, lived with us since she was widowed in 1925 until her death in 1952, at ninety-two years of age. She was a discreet and undemanding woman. She was on good terms with her son-in-law, rendering him small services — for instance, re-sewing his buttons. They never said anything unpleasant to each other.

When we lived in rue d’Ouessant, Mamé accompanied Jeanne and I back and forth to our school, the Cours Gernez on avenue de Suffren. On Thursdays, when we had the school day off, she would take us to the nearby Champ de Mars and watch us play. After we moved to rue d’Ulm, we did not need her to accompany us to move around. My grandmother decided not to go out of her new lodgings. Before she had a cataract, which was badly treated at the time, Mamé made herself useful by assuming various small duties. For instance, each Monday she made sure that Jeanne and I had the required clean pinafores with our names embroidered in red cotton, for school. To pass the time she avidly read her favorite weekly paper “Les Veillées des Chaumières” or novels we were lending her. She did not confide much in us about her past, nor did she give advice to my mother on our education. However, she was a very sensible woman. She believed in God without practicing a religion. She made, to her grandchildren, critical comments on their behavior: finish your bread, put your hands on the table and so on. She had some key historically-inspired sentences which I like to quote to my children whenever appropriate. One is “And why did we fight for three days?”, a reference to the three days during the revolution of 1830 which overthrew the king Charles X and brought to France, in principle, freedom in action for all. Another, commonly said after enjoying a good meal, is “At least, Prussians will not take that”, referring to the 1870 war. My grandmother was ten at that time but, though her family had been of small means, the leftist movement at the end of that war — or “la Commune” in France — was recalled to be a terrible period where bandits fought against the legitimate government.

My mother assumed her duty as a daughter, as was usual then, but she did not feel very close to her mother. Their personalities were too different.

Tonton and Tantine

My father was an only child. My mother had one brother, he was seven years older than her but they were very close. His nieces and nephew called him Tonton; Tantine was his spouse when we knew him. They were an important part of my youth. My sister, my brother, and I spent time with them in Poitiers during the school year of the Phony War: 1939–1940. After the war, I stayed at their house in Strasbourg several times while I was working on my thesis under the direction of Lichnerowicz, a professor there. This is why I include Tonton and Tantine in this chapter.

My uncle, René Hubert, the cherished elder brother of my mother, was born in 1885. He performed brilliantly in his studies at the lycée Rollin, and was crowned with six nominations at general competitions between 1900 and 1903. He entered the letters section of the “École Normale Supérieure”, in 1905. He came first in the Agrégation of philosophy in 1908. As was the rule at that time, he went to teach in a lycée; first in Chambery, then in Perigueux, and finally in Marseille in 1912.

As with all men of his age, René was in the army during the First World War: first in the infantry, then as the commandant of a company of machine-guns. He was wounded on 1918, December 5. As with many men of his generation, the war in the trenches was a terrible ordeal. It led René to deep thoughts and philosophical writings on wars and human nature. In 1919, René Hubert got a position in Lille; he was promoted to the position of a full philosophy professor after defending his thesis in 1923. He was elected Dean of the University of Lille in 1931 and 1934 before being appointed as Head (in French, we say “Recteur”) of the University of Poitiers in 1937.

My uncle had married Germaine Rodier, the very young daughter of his professor in the Sorbonne. My mother had no sympathy for the girl, given that she was brought up by rich parents and had no profession. I don’t know if it was the same for all the professors in the Sorbonne at the beginning of the twentieth century, but the Rodiers lived in style. They had two full-time servants, a four-wheeled carriage and a coachman to drive it. The young couple quickly had a son, Iannis. My mother, still very young, enjoyed the smiles of the baby. But the relationship between the couple soon turned sour, and a few years later they divorced. I have kn...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Prologue
• 1 Ancestors
• 2 Good Daddy, Aunt Marie, Mame and Tonton
• 3 My Parents
• 4 Childhood and Adolescence
• 5 Youth 1940–1944
• 6 Disaster 1944–1946
• 7 Life in Montaigne
• 8 A New Life, America
• 9 Marseille 1953–1955
• 10 Transitions 1957–1964
• 11 First Years in Antony 1965–1968
• 12 After the Reform 1968–1979
• 13 Academician 1979
• 14 Life Continues 1979–1990
• 15 Retirement 1990–2003
• 16 A I’I.H.E.S 2003–?
• 17 Far Away Travels
• 18 Our House in Dammartin
• Epilogue