Michèle Audin

{{Short description|French mathematician (1954–2025)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=December 2025}} {{Infobox mathematician | name = Michèle Audin | image = Michèle Audin 09887.jpg | caption = Audin in 2016 | birth_date = {{birth date|1954|1|3|df=yes}} | birth_place = Algiers, French Algeria | death_date = {{death date and age|2025|11|14|1954|1|3|df=yes}} | death_place = Strasbourg, France | fields = Symplectic geometry | workplaces = Université de Strasbourg | alma_mater = Université Paris-Sud | thesis_title = Cobordismes d'immersions lagrangiennes et legendriennes | thesis_year = 1986 | doctoral_advisor = François Latour | awards = Prix Ève Delacroix (2013) }}

'''Michèle Audin''' (3 January 1954 – 14 November 2025) was a French mathematician, writer and academic. She worked as a professor at the University of Geneva, the University of Paris-Saclay and lastly at the University of Strasbourg, where she performed research notably in the area of symplectic geometry.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Michèle AUDIN |url=https://www.dictionnaire-creatrices.com/fiche-michele-audin |access-date=27 March 2022 |website=Le Dictionnaire universel des créatrices}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jackson |first=Allyn |date=2017 |title=Michèle Audin, Mathematician and Writer |url=https://www.ams.org/publications/journals/notices/201707/rnoti-p761.pdf |journal=Notices of the American Mathematical Society |volume=64 |issue=7 |pages=761–762 |publisher=American Mathematical Society|doi=10.1090/noti1545}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Etchecopar |first=Philippe |date=18 August 2015 |title=Michèle Audin, mathématicienne (1954-) |trans-title=Michèle Audin, mathematician (1954-) |url=https://scienceetbiencommun.pressbooks.pub/femmessavantes/chapter/michele-audin-mathematicienne-1954/ |journal=Femmes Savantes, Femmes de Science |language=fr-ca}}</ref>

== Background == Michèle Audin was the daughter of mathematician Maurice Audin and mathematics teacher {{Interlanguage link|Josette Audin|lt=Josette Audin|fr}}, both pied-noirs and political activists for the independence of Algeria.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Simon |first=Catherine |date=10 January 2013 |title=Michèle Audin, géomètre du souvenir |language=fr |trans-title=Michèle Audin, geometer of memories |work=Le Monde |url=https://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2013/01/10/michele-audin-geometre-du-souvenir_1814899_3260.html |access-date=27 March 2022}}</ref> While she was a child, her father died under torture in June 1957 in Algeria, after being arrested by General Jacques Massu's paratroopers.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Béguin |first=François |date=17 December 2012 |title=Affaire Maurice Audin : "L'ouverture des archives est avant tout symbolique" |language=fr |trans-title=Affaire Maurice Audin: "The opening of the archives is above all symbolic" |work=Le Monde |url=https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2012/12/17/affaire-maurice-audin-l-ouverture-des-archives-est-avant-tout-symbolique_1807524_3224.html |access-date=27 March 2022}}</ref>

She studied at the École normale supérieure de jeunes filles (now merged into the École Normale Supérieure but at the time a separate institution) and then she earned a Ph.D. degree in 1986 from the University of Paris-Saclay, with a thesis written under the supervision of François Latour, entitled ''Cobordismes d'immersions lagrangiennes et legendriens'' [Cobordisms of Lagrangian and Legendrian immersions].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Michèle Audin |url=https://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=24058 |access-date=27 March 2022 |website=Mathematics Genealogy Project}}</ref>

Audin then became a professor at the {{Interlanguage link|Institut de recherche mathématique avancée|lt=Institut de recherche mathématique avancée|fr}} (IRMA) of the Université de Strasbourg from 1987 until her early retirement in 2014.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Audin |first=Michèle |date=25 February 2014 |title=Gagner moins pour travailler plus |trans-title=Earn less to travel more |url=https://images.math.cnrs.fr/Gagner-moins-pour-travailler-plus.html?lang=fr |access-date=27 March 2022 |website=CNRS |language=fr}}</ref> She was president of the association Femmes et mathématiques in 1990 and 1991.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Instances – Femmes et Mathématiques |url=https://femmes-et-maths.fr/lassociation/instances/ |access-date=27 March 2022 |language=fr-FR}}</ref>

In 2009, she refused to receive the Legion of Honour, on the grounds that the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, had refused to respond to a letter written by her mother regarding the disappearance of her father.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Plenel |first=Edwy |author-link=Edwy Plenel |date=2 January 2009 |title=La lettre de Michèle Audin à Nicolas Sarkozy |language=fr |trans-title=The letter of Michèle Audin to Nicolas Sarkozy |work=Mediapart |url=http://www.mediapart.fr/club/blog/edwy-plenel/020109/la-lettre-de-michele-audin-a-nicolas-sarkozy |access-date=27 March 2022}}</ref> Finally in September 2018, French president Emmanuel Macron admitted that Maurice Audin had been tortured to death and apologized on behalf of France.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Chrisafis |first=Angelique |date=13 September 2018 |title=France admits systematic torture during Algeria war for first time |url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/13/france-state-responsible-for-1957-death-of-dissident-maurice-audin-in-algeria-says-macron |access-date=27 March 2022 |work=the Guardian |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Nossiter |first=Adam |date=13 September 2018 |title=French Soldiers Tortured Algerians, Macron Admits 6 Decades Later |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/world/europe/france-algeria-maurice-audin.html |access-date=27 March 2022 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Cirri |first=Massimo |date=14 September 2018|title=Morte di un matematico francese |url=https://www.ilpost.it/massimocirri/2018/09/14/morte-di-un-matematico-francese/ |work=Il Post |trans-title=Death of a French mathematician |language=it}}</ref>

In 2013, she was awarded the Prix Ève Delacroix for her novel ''Une vie brève''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Michèle Audin |url=https://www.academie-francaise.fr/michele-audin |access-date=27 March 2022 |website=Académie française}}</ref>

Audin died in Strasbourg on 14 November 2025, at the age of 71.<ref>{{cite news |title=Michèle Audin, mathématicienne, historienne et écrivaine, est morte |url=https://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2025/11/18/michele-audin-mathematicienne-historienne-et-ecrivaine-est-morte_6653862_3382.html?lmd_medium=al&lmd_campaign=envoye-par-appli&lmd_creation=android&lmd_source=default |access-date=20 November 2025 |publisher= |date=18 November 2025|work=Le Monde}}</ref><ref>[https://femmes-et-maths.fr/deces-de-michele-audin/ Décès de Michèle Audin] {{in lang|fr}} ''Femmes et Maths''.</ref>

== Research == Michèle Audin's research work mainly belongs to the field of symplectic geometry. Her PhD thesis draws on René Thom's theory of cobordism<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Thom |first=Réné |date=1954 |title=Quelques propriétés globales des variétés différentiables |trans-title=Some global properties of differentiable manifolds |url=https://eudml.org/doc/139072 |journal=Commentarii Mathematici Helvetici |language=fr |volume=28 |pages=17–86 |doi=10.1007/BF02566923 |issn=0010-2571 |s2cid=120243638}}</ref> to contribute to the founding program of symplectic topology launched by the Russian mathematician Vladimir Arnold. Audin then oriented her research to dynamical aspects, and more specifically to Hamiltonian systems.

In her monograph "''Spinning tops: A Course on Integrable Systems''", Audin discusses in detail the question of whether a dynamical system is integrable, a central question of her later research. A particularly enlightening example comes from her article "''Sur la réduction symplectique appliquée à la non-intégrabilité du problème du satellite''".{{fact|date=November 2025}}

Audin's work on Kovalevskaya top led her to write another book, both mathematical, historical and more personal on this mathematician: "''Souvenirs sur Sofia Kovalevskaya"''. She also published the correspondence (1928–1991) of two members of the Bourbaki group, the mathematicians Henri Cartan and André Weil, she wrote the first biography of the mathematician Jacques Feldbau, and she documented the genesis of the modern holomorphic dynamics, with detailed portraits of the main protagonists: Pierre Fatou, Gaston Julia and Paul Montel.{{fact|date=November 2025}}

She contributed regularly on historical subjects to the mathematics popularisation website {{Interlanguage link|Images des mathématiques|lt=Images des mathématiques|fr}}.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Images des mathématiques |url=https://images.math.cnrs.fr/_Audin-Michele_.html?lang=fr |access-date=27 March 2022 |website=CNRS}}</ref>

== As a writer == Alongside her activity as a mathematician, Audin led an intense literary activity on her own and, beginning in 2009, within the Oulipo.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=23 July 2013 |title=Michèle Audin |url=https://www.oulipo.net/oulipiens/ma |access-date=27 March 2022 |website=Oulipo |language=fr}}</ref>

=== History of the Paris Commune === Passionate about the insurrection of the Paris Commune of 1871, Audin wrote five books on this topic to document its history as well as its memory: two novels published by Gallimard, ''Comme une rivière bleue'' (2017)<ref>{{Cite news |last=Perraud |first=Antoine |date=7 December 2017 |title=« Comme une rivière bleue », cause commune |language=fr-FR |trans-title=“Like a blue river”, common cause |work=La Croix |url=https://www.la-croix.com/Culture/Livres-et-idees/Comme-riviere-bleue-cause-commune-2017-12-07-1200897682 |access-date=27 March 2022 |issn=0242-6056}}</ref> and ''Josée Meunier, 19 rue des Juifs'' (2021), as well as three historical books published by {{Interlanguage link|Libertalia (éditions)|lt=Libertalia|fr}}. The first, ''Eugène Varlin, bookbinding worker 1839-1871'' (2019), is an anthology of the various writings of Eugène Varlin, some of which had not been published since their original release.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Dejean |first=Mathieu |date=23 May 2019 |title=Pourquoi il est important de se souvenir d'Eugène Varlin, militant ouvrier et communard |trans-title=Why it is important to remember Eugène Varlin, labour activist and communard |url=https://www.lesinrocks.com/livres/pourquoi-il-est-important-de-se-souvenir-deugene-varlin-militant-ouvrier-et-communard-154676-23-05-2019/ |access-date=27 March 2022 |website=Les Inrockuptibles |language=fr-FR}}</ref> The second, ''C'est la nuit surtout que le combat devient furieux'' (2020), publishes the correspondence between Alix Payen, an unknown paramedic, and her Fourierist family, during the few months of the Parisian insurrection.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bouyssy |first=Maïté |date=12 August 2020 |title=Aux grandes femmes la Commune reconnaissante |trans-title=To great women the grateful Commune |url=https://www.en-attendant-nadeau.fr/2020/08/13/grandes-femmes-commune/ |access-date=27 March 2022 |website={{Interlanguage link|En attendant Nadeau|lt=En attendant Nadeau|fr}} |language=fr-FR}}</ref> The last, ''La Semaine sanglante: Mai 1871''. ''Légendes et comptes'' (2021), proposes a new counting of the deaths of Bloody Week, going up to “certainly 15,000 dead”.

=== Activity within the Oulipo === Audin was guest of honor at a meeting of Oulipo on the initiative of Jacques Roubaud, following the publication of her book ''Souvenirs sur Sofia Kovalevskaya'', which mixes in a discontinuous form anecdotes, precise mathematics, testimonials, excerpts of correspondence with commentary and even literary pastiches. There are references to the Oulipo in testimonial chapters entitled “''Je me souviens''” in reference to Georges Perec, or even in a pastiche of Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Tahar |first=Virginie |date=2018 |title=Quand les mathématiques, l'histoire et la littérature s'emmêlent. Entretien avec Michèle Audin |trans-title=When mathematics, history and literature intertwine. Interview with Michèle Audin |url=https://www.ieeff.org/formules21tocter.pdf |journal=Formule: Revue des créations formelles |language=fr |volume=21 |pages=349–362}}</ref>

She became part of Oulipo in 2009, as the first member to be both a mathematician and a writer. Mathematics was for her both a source of inspiration for the constraints she invented and a recurring theme in her literary work. For example, in her novel ''La formule de Stokes'', the heroine is a mathematical formula.<ref>{{cite book |last=Tahar |first=Virginie |url=https://books.openedition.org/lisaa/1162 |title=Femmes à l'œuvre dans la construction des savoirs: paradoxes de la visibilité et de l'invisibilité |publisher=LISAA éditeur |year=2020 |editor-last=Trotot |editor-first=Caroline |publication-place=Champs sur Marne |pages=215–232 |language=fr |trans-title=Women at work in the construction of knowledge: paradoxes of visibility and invisibility |chapter=Les oulipiennes sont-elles des oulipiens comme les autres? |series=Savoirs en Texte |isbn=9782956648062 |trans-chapter=Are female Oulipians as the other Oulipians? |editor-last2=Delahaye |editor-first2=Claire |editor-last3=Mornat |editor-first3=Isabelle |chapter-url=https://lisaa.u-pem.fr/fileadmin/Fichiers/LISAA/LISAA_editeur/Savoirs_en_texte/Femmes_a_l_oeuvre_dans_la_construction_des_savoirs/Tahar_Femmes_a_l_oeuvre.pdf}}</ref>

She invented constraints of a geometric nature such as Pascal's or Désargues's constraint. Pascal's constraint was experienced in her online story ''Mai Quai Conti''<ref>{{Cite web |last=Audin |first=Michèle |date=25 March 2011 |title=Mai quai Conti |url=https://oulipo.net/fr/mai-quai-conti |access-date=27 March 2022 |website=oulipo.net |language=fr}}</ref> which evokes the history of the Académie des sciences during the Paris Commune: the relationships between the characters of the story are determined by the position of the points of a geometric figure illustrating Pascal's theorem.<ref name=":0" />

She also worked with Ian Monk on ''nonine'', i.e. a variant of the sestina based on numbers which are not Queneau numbers, and therefore with which the system of permutation of the sestina does not work.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Audin |first=Michèle |date=19 April 2015 |title=Nombres de Queneau (ou non) |trans-title=Queneau numbers (or not) |url=https://www.oulipo.net/fr/le-monde-des-nonines/nombres-de-queneau-ou-non |access-date=27 March 2022 |website=Oulipo |language=fr}}</ref>

Her first novel, ''Cent vingt et un jours'', is based on an ''onzine'', i.e. a ''quenine'' of order 11 (variant of the sestina) from which characters, literary references and other elements of the narrative permute in a regulated manner. As in the poetic sestina, the last word of a chapter is the same as the first word of the next chapter.<ref name=":0" />

== Publications ==

=== Literature === * {{in lang|fr}} ''La formule de Stokes, roman'', Cassini, 2016. * {{in lang|fr}} ''Mademoiselle Haas'', Gallimard, 2016. * {{in lang|fr}} ''Cent vingt et un jours'', Gallimard, 2014. Translated into English by Christiana Hills as ''One Hundred Twenty-One Days'', Deep Vellum, 2016. * {{in lang|fr}} ''Une vie brève'', Gallimard, 2013.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mazliak |first=Laurent |date=2013-10-01 |title=Review of Une vie brève by Michèle Audin |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/s40329-013-0019-8 |journal=Lettera Matematica |language=en |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=117–118 |doi=10.1007/s40329-013-0019-8 |issn=2281-5937}}</ref>

=== History of Mathematics === * {{in lang|fr}} ''Correspondance entre Henri Cartan et André Weil (1928–1991)'', Documents Mathématiques '''6''', Société Mathématique de France, 2011. * {{in lang|fr}} ''Une histoire de Jacques Feldbau'', Société mathématique de France, collection T, 2010. * {{in lang|fr}} ''Fatou, Julia, Montel, le Grand Prix des sciences mathématiques de 1918, et après'', Springer, 2009 * {{in lang|fr}} ''Souvenirs sur Sofia Kovalevskaya'', Calvage et Mounet, 2008. Translated into English as ''Remembering Sofya Kovalevskaya'', Springer-Verlag, 2011.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Giblin |first=Peter |date=2013 |title=Reviews - Remembering Sofya Kovalevskya, by Michéle Audin. Pp. 284. £35.99. 2011 ISBN: 978-0-85729-928-4 (Springer-Verlag). |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/mathematical-gazette/article/abs/reviews-remembering-sofya-kovalevskya-by-michele-audin-pp-284-3599-2011-isbn-9780857299284-springerverlag/80E71A13BF9BA479AE31B9CCF256EA38 |journal=The Mathematical Gazette |language=en |volume=97 |issue=539 |pages=363–364 |doi=10.1017/S0025557200006264 |issn=0025-5572}}</ref>

=== Mathematics === * {{in lang|fr}} ''Géométrie'', EDP-Sciences, 2005. * ''Symplectic Geometry of Hamiltonian systems and their integrability'', Translated from the 2001 French original by Anna Pierrehumbert. Translation edited by Donald Babbitt. SMF/AMS Texts and Monographs, vol. 15. American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI; Société mathématique de France, Paris, 2008. {{ISBN|978-0-8218-4413-7}}, {{MR|2440371}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Donev |first=Stoil G. |date=2004 |title=BOOK REVIEW Symplectic Geometry of Integrable Hamiltonian Systems, by Michele Audin, Ana Cannas da Silva and Eugene Lerman, Birkhauser ¨ , Basel, 2003, viii + 225pp, ISBN 3-7643-2167-9 |url=https://projecteuclid.org/journals/journal-of-geometry-and-symmetry-in-physics/volume-2/issue-none/Symplectic-Geometry-of-Integrable-Hamiltonian-Systems-by-Michele-Audin-Ana/jgsp/1495245755.pdf |journal=Journal of Geometry and Symmetry in Physics |pages=124–126}}</ref> * ''The topology of torus actions on symplectic manifolds'', Progress in Mathematics, vol. 93, Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel, 1991. {{ISBN|3-7643-2602-6}}, {{MR|1106194}}

== References == {{Reflist}}

== External links == * [http://www-irma.u-strasbg.fr/~maudin/ Page about Michèle Audin on the Website of l'IRMA] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171007162146/http://www-irma.u-strasbg.fr/~maudin/ |date=7 October 2017}} * [http://www.oulipo.net/oulipiens/ma Page about Michèle Audin on the official website of l'Oulipo] * {{Cite web |author-first= Michèle |author-last=Audin |author-link =Michèle Audin |title = Publier sous l’Occupation I. Autour du cas de Jacques Feldbau et de l’Académie des sciences |trans-title= |journal = Rev. Hist. Math. |volume =15 |issue= |pages =5–57 |year = 2009 |language =fr |url = https://www.numdam.org/item/RHM_2009__15_1_7_0/ |doi = |jfm = }} * [http://www-irma.u-strasbg.fr/~maudin/poldevie.pdf Michèle Audin, ''La vérité sur la Poldévie''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140103201106/http://www-irma.u-strasbg.fr/~maudin/poldevie.pdf |date=3 January 2014}} * [http://www-irma.u-strasbg.fr/~maudin/carresimparfaits.pdf Michèle Audin, ''Carrés imparfaits''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928032449/http://www-irma.u-strasbg.fr/~maudin/carresimparfaits.pdf |date=28 September 2011}} * {{IMDb name| 10123980}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Audin, Michele}} Category:1954 births Category:2025 deaths Category:French geometers Category:Oulipo members Category:Academic staff of the University of Strasbourg Category:Academic staff of the University of Geneva Category:École normale supérieure (Paris) alumni Category:Academic staff of Paris-Saclay University Category:University of Paris alumni Category:20th-century French mathematicians Category:21st-century French mathematicians Category:20th-century French women mathematicians Category:21st-century French women mathematicians Category:Legion of Honour refusals Category:People from Algiers